Strengthening honeybee colonies for the next floral season by feeding stimulative diets during dearth periods

The feeding experiments were conducted in an apiary during the summer dearth periods when enough floral sources were not available in the Indora region of Himachal Pradesh, India. Two different protein diets were fed to 24 colonies for 8 weeks (14 May - 2 July). An equal quantity of each diet was weighed and fed to bees for a feeding regime of 7 days. The consumption of diet 2 was significantly greater (p < 0.05) than diet 1. Mean consumption for diet 1 was 58.51 and 58.71 g/colony/week and for diet 2, it was 95.11 and 88.45 g/colony/week, in 2021 and 2022, respectively. The results indicate that diet 2 was consumed in maximum quantity.