Effects of Wax Comb Used Time on Colony Growth and Morphometric Characteristics of Honeybee (Apis cerana cerana) Workers

PurposesTo study the effects of wax comb used time and changes in structure of wax combs on the colony growth and morphometric characteristics of Apis cerana cerana workers.

MethodsDifferent of used time (20 days, half a year, 1 year, and 2 years) and the newly emerged workers of Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau A. cerana cerana (an ecotype of A. cerana cerana) from those wax combs mentioned above were used as experimental materials, and the indexes of wax comb structure, colony growth and morphological characteristics of emerged workers were measured.

ResultWith the increase of combs used time, the color of combs gradually became darker, the thickness of and the depth of cells on combs gradually increased. However, the each internal side length, diameter and volume of cells gradually decreased. These changes of the wax comb structure led to an extremely significant decrease in brood population, area of brood comb, and morphological indexes of emerged workers reared in wax combs with different used time (P<0.01).

ConclusionsThe colony growth and morphological characteristics of workers were affected by the structure changes of comb with different used time, especially the newly combs are effective on brood rearing in colonies. Therefore, beekeepers should promote bees to build actively many new wax combs in time and eliminate timely old ones after half a year’s use during the period with abundant nectar and pollen resources, which is of great significance to formulating a reasonable A. cerana cerana feeding management program and improving the production performance of colony.