Fatty acid homeostasis in honey bees (Apis mellifera) fed commercial diet supplements
Vanessa Corby‐Harris, Meghan M. Bennett, Megan E. Deeter, Lucy Snyder, Charlotte Meador, Ashley C. Welchert, Amelia Hoffman, Bethany T. Obernesser, Mark J. Carroll
Abstract
Abstract Honey bees obtain lipids from pollen or commercial supplements. These supplements do not fully support colony health. We tested the hypothesis that supplements are deficient because they lack essential fatty acids (EFAs). The five supplements we tested had low linolenic (⍵3) acid and were unbalanced (⍵6:⍵3 > 6) compared to natural pollen. We selected two of these supplements for further study because they had different levels of individual EFAs and different ⍵6:⍵3 ratios. Bees from hives fed these different supplements had equivalent tissue EFA levels. In choice assays, hives fed these different supplements were presented with flours with various absolute and relative levels of EFAs. We saw no difference in foraging preference. Rather, all hives preferred flours with small grain size and high protein to lipid ratios. We conclude that bees balance their internal EFAs and that differential colony nutrition does not affect foraging preference. The data also argue for more linolenic (⍵3) acid in commercial supplements.