Honey bee (Apis mellifera) preference towards micronutrients and their impact on bee colonies

Honey bees are important pollinators and take micronutrients from different natural floral resources and turbid water to adequately meet their nutritional requirements. But the role of micronutrients for honey bee health is not well understood. Here, the present study was conducted to determine honey bees' micronutrients preference in summer and winter seasons. Also, the impact of micronutrients on foraging behaviour and brood increase was studied in different honey bee colonies. The results elucidated that honey bees exhibited a strong preference for a salt solution compared to deionized water during the summer and winter seasons. However, there was a notable switch in salt preference between seasons. Overall, honey bees showed significantly more foraging activity, more pollen collection, and increased brood area after sodium consumption compared to other minerals in the summer season. Further, pollen collection and brood area were significantly higher after the use of potassium in the winter season. Thus, the food preference of honey bees is strongly linked with the seasons and the availability of the floral resources. Our data suggested that honey bees may seek specific nutrients during variation of the seasonal conditions. (c) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

The study found that honey bees have a strong preference for salt solutions in both summer and winter, with a notable switch in preference between seasons. In the summer, bees showed increased foraging activity, pollen collection, and brood area after consuming sodium, while in the winter, the use of potassium led to higher pollen collection and brood area. This suggests that the food preference of honey bees is closely linked to seasonal variations and the availability of floral resources.