Effect of supplementary feeding on morphometry of worker honeybees in Western Himalayan region

Efficient management of bee colonies requires the beekeepers to provide artificial food to the bees when they need it. The need to feed artificial diet depends a lot on the amount of brood in the hive, the amount of stored pollen and nectar, current as well as future nectar and pollen conditions and demands to be placed on the hives. If hives are critically short of pollen and either have a large brood nest or are expanding their brood nest, then the beekeepers need to consider various options available to them for e.g. supplementary feeding, migration of bee colonies to the region rich in flora etc. to avoid a reduction in bee population. Feeding of artificially diet may have positive effect on colony attributes including morphometric characters. It was observed that feeding of diet led to significant increase in some of the morphometric characters like tongue length.