>>We tested in honeybees (Apis mellifera) whether dietary protein quantity (monofloral pollen) and diet diversity (polyfloral pollen) can shape baseline immunocompetence (IC)...

Last year I was asked to look after an apiary set in a large nature preserve that used to be a farm and now is mostly undeveloped with varied landscape.  This apiary had consisted of 1 hive for some 5 years w/o a caretaker.  I checked the single colony last fall and found it strong with plenty of stores (after I took off 2 mediums!) for the winter.  [This colony consisted of 3 deeps and 2 mediums.]

The colony overwintered well, I was late supering, and they were ready to swarm in April.  I put the 2 frames with the queen cells and emerging brood in a split hive and this resulted in 2 colonies with very large queens (even by my standards).  

In late June I took off 2 mediums from the original colony and split them again: I moved the parent colony to a new spot and in its place put one deep with 1 frame of eggs and the rest where frames with honey/pollen.  At the last check, the returning forage-age bees had 4 nice size queen cells.  I'll check them next week - there should be a laying queen now if she made it through her mating flight(s).

It's occured to me that these strong bees might be getting better nutrition in this large nature preserve allowing them to prosper.  The honey from this location has a slightly different but nice nonetheless taste - perhaps an indication of a more varied floral sources.  I am going to let these 3 colonies to fill their boxes with honey for the winter and, hopefully, not have to add sugar water.  The bees do show some mites and I am planning to treat them with OA in the fall if only to boost next year's honey crop.

This apiary is roughly 4 miles from my home apiary.  It's perfect for not competing since the two foraging ranges should be just about tangent to each other (using the 2 mile foraging radius)...

Waldemar

PS.  This preserve also has an observation hive that overwintered well after getting some sugar water and actually swarmed in the early summer this year...








 by measuring parameters of individual immunity (haemocyte concentration, fat body content and phenoloxidase activity) and glucose oxidase (GOX) activity, which enables bees to sterilize colony and brood food, as a parameter of social immunity. 

> Protein feeding modified both individual and social IC but increases in dietary protein quantity did not enhance IC. However, diet diversity increased IC levels. In particular, polyfloral diets induced higher GOX activity compared with monofloral diets, including protein-richer diets. These results suggest a link between protein nutrition and immunity in honeybees and underscore the critical role of resource availability on pollinator health.

Cedric Alaux, Francois Ducloz, Didier Crauser and Yves Le Conte. Diet effects on honeybee immunocompetence. 2010. Biology Letters 

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