Effect of population size and Season on the expression of hygienic and aggressive behaviors in lorestan honey bee (Apis mellifera meda) colonies

Healthy behavior is an appropriate alternative method in combating honey bee pests and diseases to reduce the use of chemical pesticides. In this study, the effect of population size (5, 7 and 10 frames), season (spring and summer) and the interaction between population size and season were investigated on the incidence of health and invasive behaviors of lorestan honey bee colonies. For this purpose, 21 colonies belonging to Lorestan province, Khorramabad city, were used. Liquid nitrogen was used to kill pupae in order to determine the incidence of uncapping and removing traits. In the following, the percentage of uncapping and removing cells was counted 48 hours after pouring liquid nitrogen. The mean of cell removing and uncapping were 94.48%, 92.67%, 91.81% and 88.33% in spring and summer, respectively, but these differences was not significant (p>0.05). The 5 frames populations had the lowest mean of cap uncapping (88.29) and removing (84.43) compared to 7 and 10 frames populations. The incidence of health behavior was affected by the interaction of population size and season so that 7 frame populations had the best health behavior in spring. There was no significant difference between treatments in the occurrence of aggressive behavior. A significant positive correlation was observed between uncapping and removing. In general, the results of this study showed that the lorestan honey bee colonies show good health behavior and they can be used in breeding programs to build resistant populations.