Towards holistic colony feeding: Effects of vitamin supplementation on summer and winter honeybee workers, Apis mellifera

In managed western honeybee, Apis mellifera, colonies, vitamins are often neglected when it comes to supplementary feeding despite their importance for health. Moreover, the potential links of vitamin feeding to longevity, food consumption and adult dry weight are poorly understood. Finally, comparative nutritional studies of short-lived summer workers and long-lived winter workers are currently lacking. Here, in a fully-crossed design, multivitamin supplementation of vitamins A, D, E, K, C, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B8, B9 and B12 (N=13), titrated in three different dosages were fed to summer and winter workers in two trials. In standard laboratory hoarding cages, experimental workers were assigned one of eight treatments: Sucrose, Sucrose + Pollen, Vitamin 1, Vitamin 1 + Pollen, Vitamin 2, Vitamin 2 + Pollen, Vitamin 3, Vitamin 3 + Pollen (N=8 treatments, 26 workers/cage, N=64 cages/phase, N = 3328 total workers). Regardless of season, significant consumption polynomial trends were revealed..., , , # Data from: Towards holistic colony feeding: Effects of vitamin supplementation on summer and winter honeybee workers, Apis mellifera

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.dncjsxm83](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.dncjsxm83)

## Description of the data and file structure

The following data are from the in-revision publication \"Towards holistic colony feeding: effects of vitamin supplementation on summer and winter honeybee workers, Apis mellifera\" submitted to *PLOS One*

The data was collected and processed by the lead author, Andrew F Brown.  The data were taken at the Institute of Bee Health in Liebefeld, Switzerland, from May - December 2021.

It contains survival data (time-to-event, Kaplan Meier Survival Analysis), sucrose consumption data through time (n=24 days), pollen consumption data (n=24 days), sucrose-pollen ratio data (n=24 days), summer bee dry weight, and winter bee dry weight.

The data are in .xls format, with 10 individually labeled tabs, each associated to the above-men...,