Table 25 The effect of artificial diet and sugar syrup on comb area, honey stores, pollen stores, egg number and male brood under coconut

Table 25 The effect of artificial diet and sugar syrup on comb area, honey stores, pollen stores, egg number and male brood under coconut

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Parameters recorded:	Comb area	Honey	Pollen	Eggs	Male
	sq. in.	cells	cells		brood
Treatments:
SYRUP + ARTIFICIAL DIET:	112a	3164a	344ab	1591a	373a
SYRUP:	129a	3238a	513a	3584a	75a
ARTIFICIAL DIET:	54b	199b	203ab	1210a	85a
CONTROL:	56b	1b	129b	1961a	46a

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Different letters in the same column denote significant differences between treatments (DMRT at P=0.10).

This food combination significantly exceeded the syrup alone treatment in three respects: honey content, pollen content and egg number in the hives. Honey content merely shows that the syrup was being transferred from the syrup container into the honeycomb and the high amount of pollen present showed that bees used the syrup energy to collect the maize pollen in the surrounding area compared to when given syrup without a pollen source.

However the significantly higher number of eggs laid by the queen when both syrup and pollen were present compared to when only syrup was given, showed that pollen may be acting as an extra incentive for egg-laying.

The results also show that the area chosen for the control treatment was indeed poor in food and it paints a true picture of beekeeping away from the coconut growing regions of the country especially during a rainy spell.