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Turkish Journal of Veterinary & Animal Sciences

DOI

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Abstract

This study was carried out in order to determine the effects of honeybee genotype and season on the acceptance rates of the larvae and royal jelly production. The cell builder colonies were prepared from the Caucasian (A. m. caucasica), Carniolan (A. m. carnica) and Mugla (A. m. anatoliaca) bees. One-day-old larvae were grafted into queen cell cups and they were placed in queenless and queenright cell builders. They were removed from the cell builders 72 hours after grafting and the acceptance rate and the royal jelly production were recorded. The average acceptance rate and royal jelly production per cell throughout the season were 88.2% and 0.263 g in queenless cell builders and 72.1% and 0.214 g in queenright cell builders, respectively. The average acceptance rate and the royal jelly production per cell were 90.0 ± 0.5% (89.09%-91.03%) and 0.372 ± 0.082 g in Carniolan bees, 83.4% ± 0.72% (82.00%-84.86%) and 0.325 ± 0.067 g in Mugla bees and 77.1% ± 0.6% (75.92%-78.32%) and 0.200 ± 0.011 g in Caucasian bees, respectively (P < 0.01). Royal jelly production in Carniolan bees was 14.46% and 86.0% higher than that in Mugla and Caucasian bees, respectively. Carniolan and Mugla bees were found to be more suitable for royal jelly production than the Caucasian bees under the experimental conditions.

Keywords

Royal jelly production, Apis mellifera, genotype, season, queen cell cup

First Page

499

Last Page

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