Economic Analysis of Honey Bee Colonies Fed with Different Pollen Diets before Wintering

Abstract

Nutrition is a requirement for the survival of every living organism. Under normal conditions, honeybees meet their nutritional needs from natural floral sources. In cases where there are insufficient floral resources, additional feeding is required for the colonies. In this study, economic analysis of supplementary feeding models formed by giving different protein diets and carbohydrate (sugar-water mixture) needed until early spring to colonies prepared with equal strength in the autumn period was performed. The feeding experiment was carried out on 6 groups with 8 colonies in each group and a total of 48 colonies. Experimental groups were as follows: Papaver somniforum pollen, Cistus creticus pollen, mixed pollen, bee cake, syrup, and control. In this study, after determining the production costs per hive for the experimental groups, it was analyzed whether the bee frame values per hive cover the production costs. It could be concluded that feeding with P. somniforum pollen is slightly more advantageous than other feeding groups when the results of the pre-winter, winter and early spring periods are evaluated together. The ratio of bee frame value per hive to cover the production cost was calculated as 40.65% before winter, 102.98% in winter and 98.66% in early spring for the feeding with P. somniforum pollen. In terms of relative profitability, the protein diet with the closest performance to P. somniforum pollen is C. creticus pollen. In other feeding groups, the relative profitability was found to be lower.