Foraging and pollen gathering behavior of worker bees in high and low honey production colonies of Iranian honeybee (Apis mellifera meda)

Honey production is correlated to some behavior‚ productive and morphological characteristic in honeybee colonies. In the other hand‚ fluctuation of these traits simultaneously can increase or decrease of honey production in colonies. Determining the correlated traits of honey production‚ can help the researchers and beekeepers to identify the best colonies with lower cost and during the fewer time. This research has tried to find the correlation between honey production and worker foraging behavior through different methods in 10th generation colonies of “Honey Breeding Project of Iran”. In the first method‚ in the sunny day and without wind in the hours between 11 and13‚while the hive entrance was closed‚ pictures were taken front of each hive. The pictures were taken at the same distances of hives‚ by a camera that was equipped with macro lens. Then the bees were counted in front of each colony or hive. In the second method‚ the number of bees that going out and return back to the hive also the numbers of returned foragers with pollen load were counted during 2 minutes in front of each hive entrance. Counting the foragers was done in the morning and afternoon of the same day for all of the colonies. The obtained data were compared through T-test analysis program in high and low production colonies and different times. The obtained data were showed the retuned bees (P<0.05) and returned bees with pollen load (P<0.05) in high production colonies were more than low production colonies (in both of methods). But the number of bees that were going out of colonies has not significant differentness. Our results showed that the number of foragers in the morning were more than afternoon in the some days (P<0.05). So the number of forager bees has positive correlation with honey production in honeybee colonies. Therefore‚ the number of foragers of colonies can help the beekeepers and researchers to select the best colonies in order to establish the next generations.