Feeding with plant powders increases longevity and body weight of Western honeybee workers (Apis mellifera)

Beekeepers routinely substitute honey from managed western honeybees, Apis mellifera, colonies with sugar water post-harvest, potentially leading to malnutrition. Although nutritional supplements have been created, a general consensus on proper colony nutrition for beekeeping has yet to be reached. Thus, finding easily obtainable fortified A. mellifera food alternatives is still of interest. Here, we test plant powder-enriched food supplements since a priori evidence suggests plant extracts can enhance dry body weight and longevity of workers. Freshly emerged workers were kept in hoarding cages (N=69 days) and fed either with 50 % (w/v) sucrose solution alone or additionally with one of 12 powders: Laurus nobilis, Quercus spp., Curcuma longa, Hypericum spp., Spirulina platensis, Calendula officinalis, Chlorella vulgaris, Melissa officinalis, Moringa oleifera, Rosa canina, Trigonella foenum-graecum, and Urtica dioica (N=2028 workers total). The dry body weight was significantly increased..., The data were collected during hoarding cage experiments conducted at the Institute of Bee Health in 2022. The data have been processed using the opensource software R (version 4.3.2 (2023-10-31))., , # Feeding with plant powders increases longevity and body weight of Western honeybee workers (Apis mellifera) The dataset contains Sucrose consumption data, Survival Data, and Dry Weight data ## Description of the data and file structure All data are found an excel sheet, with tabs for the sucrose consumption, survival, and dry weight. **Sucrose consumption tab**: Here, there are 4 variables: **cage** (unique ID for each experimental cage), **treatment** (plant species), **day** (time point of measurement), and **loss** (amount of food consumed in milligrams / bee). **Survival tab**: Here, there are 4 variables: **cage** (unique ID for each experimental cage), **treatment** (plant species), **day** (time point of measurement), **individual** (unique ID assigned to bee in the order they died, i.e. #1 = first bee to die in cage), **removed** (how many bees died / were removed at that time point), and **status** (o = right censored, 1 = died naturally). **Dry Weight tab** : Here, t...养蜂人通常在收获后使用糖水替代人工饲养的西方蜜蜂（Apis mellifera）蜂群所产的蜂蜜，这一做法可能引发蜂群营养不良。尽管目前已开发出多种营养补充剂，但养蜂领域尚未就蜂群合理营养方案达成普遍共识。因此，寻找易于获取的强化型西方蜜蜂食物替代品仍具研究价值。本研究针对植物粉末富集的食物补充剂开展测试，因先验证据显示植物提取物可提升工蜂的干体重与寿命。我们将刚羽化的工蜂置于储留笼中饲养（饲养周期共69天），受试蜂群分别饲喂50%（w/v）蔗糖溶液，或在此基础上额外添加12种粉末中的一种：月桂（Laurus nobilis）、栎属（Quercus spp.）、姜黄（Curcuma longa）、金丝桃属（Hypericum spp.）、钝顶螺旋藻（Spirulina platensis）、金盏花（Calendula officinalis）、普通小球藻（Chlorella vulgaris）、香蜂花（Melissa officinalis）、辣木（Moringa oleifera）、犬蔷薇（Rosa canina）、胡芦巴（Trigonella foenum-graecum）以及异株荨麻（Urtica dioica），总计受试工蜂2028只。实验结果显示，工蜂的干体重显著提升…… 本数据采集自2022年在蜜蜂健康研究所开展的储留笼实验，数据通过开源软件R（版本4.3.2，发布于2023-10-31）进行处理。 # 植物粉末饲喂可提升西方蜜蜂（Apis mellifera）工蜂的寿命与体重 本数据集包含蔗糖消耗量数据、存活数据与干体重数据。 ## 数据与文件结构说明 所有数据存储于一张Excel工作表中，包含三个工作表标签，分别对应蔗糖消耗量、存活情况与干体重。 **蔗糖消耗量工作表**：包含4个变量：**笼号**（每个实验笼的唯一标识符）、**处理组**（植物物种）、**天数**（测量时间节点）、**消耗量**（每只蜜蜂的食物消耗量，单位：毫克）。 **存活情况工作表**：包含6个变量：**笼号**（每个实验笼的唯一标识符）、**处理组**（植物物种）、**天数**（测量时间节点）、**个体编号**（按死亡顺序为蜂只分配的唯一标识符，即#1为该笼中第一只死亡的蜜蜂）、**移除数**（该时间节点死亡/移除的蜜蜂数量）、**状态**（o = 右删失，1 = 自然死亡）。 **干体重工作表**：此处包含……