ENRICHING NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTS FOR BEES WITH BIOLOGICALLY ACTIVE SUBSTANCES OF COORDINATIVE ORGANIC COMPOUNDS

Valentina Cebotari, I. Buzu, Olga Postolachi

Abstract
   The purpose of this study was comparative testing, in bee food, of various nutritional supplements enriched with some new organic coordinative compounds of new generation and to reveal the most effective ones for the preparation of nutritional supplements and bee nourishment during periods of poor harvesting in nature. The research was carried out on honey bee families from the Carpathian race at the experimental apiary of the Institute of Zoology of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova. In the experiment, 5 similar batches were formed, with 10 families in each batch. The bee families of the experimental batches were fed for 14 days with nutritional supplements enriched with biologically active substances, a 50% of nutritional blend of sugar syrup and bioactive supplements of coordinative organic compounds (COC).The feeding of bee families with nutritional mixtures was carried out in ratio of 120 ml of the mixture at each interval of populated by bees frame, every 2 days for two consecutive weeks. In batch I (control), bee families were fed only with 50% sugar syrup. For bees of batch II (prototype), the sugar syrup was enriched with the patented bioactive suppliment (MD 850 Z 2015.08.31). For bee families of batches III, IV and V, nutritional supplements enriched with coordinative organic compounds containing rare microelements, referred to as CV-6, CV-8 and CV-22, were used. The research results have shown that some of the coordinative organic compounds tested in bee's feed in the period of poor harvesting in nature, had some influence on reproductive and characteristics of bee families. Thus, in batches II, III and V, compared to the control group, the queen prolificity was higher by 9.9-15.8% (P<0.05 – 0.001), amount of capped brood by 10,0-15,8% (P<0.05 – 0.001) and colony strength by 5,8-6,2% (P<0.001).However, the stimulating effect of reproductive functions is not certain, because the activation of reproductive and developing characters of bee families must inevitably lead to the increasing of the capacity of acumulation of bee products in the nest. Therefore, none of the newly-tested coordinating compounds showed general stimulatory properties, which would result in increased apiculture production, especially honey production.

Key words: testing, nutritional supplements, bee families, prolificity, development, honey