Effect of pollen diet and honey bee (apis mellifera l.) primer pheromones on worker bee food producing glands

摘要

This thesis examines three factors that may influence the change in proteincontent and size of the brood food glands in honey bees. Effects on the mandibulargland, involved in the production of brood food and in royal jelly, have not beenexamined in relation to primer pheromones while effects on the hypopharyngeal glands,also involved in the production of brood food, have not been examined in relation toqueen mandibular pheromone. This thesis provides preliminary insight into how thesepheromones affect the extractable protein content of brood food glands.The first study in this thesis assessed the effects of brood pheromone (BP), queenmandibular pheromone (QMP), and pollen presence on the protein content ofhypopharyngeal and mandibular glands of the honey bee. In this study, newly emergedbees were caged for 12 days in one of eight treatments: Queenless state: 1) control (nopollen + no pheromone), 2) pollen, 3) BP, 4) BP + pollen; Queenright state: 1) QMP, 2)QMP + pollen, 3) BP + QMP, 4) BP + QMP + pollen. This study indicated thatregardless of pheromone treatment, the most influential factor on gland protein contentand size was pollen. The second experiment examined effects of varying pollen dilution onhypopharyngeal and mandibular gland protein content, bee mass, and lipid content of thehoney bee. In this experiment, newly emerged bees were caged for 7 days and fed oneof five treatments: pollen, 1:1 pollen: cellulose (vol:vol), 1:2 pollen: cellulose (vol:vol);1:3 pollen: cellulose (vol:vol), and cellulose. This study indicated that bees on thepollen diet were significantly greater than all other diluted diets in measurements ofhypopharyngeal gland protein content, lipid content, and mass with significantly lessconsumption. However, mandibular gland protein content of bees on the pollen diet wassignificantly greater only from pure cellulose.