International Journal of Horticultural Science (Jun 2000)
Differences of pollen and pollenkitt attractiveness of some cultivated and ornamental apples for honeybees
Abstract
Differences in the attractiveness of pollen according to plant families and species for the honeybees had been examined by researchers, but pollen samples of cultivars were not tested yet. This examination attempts to evalu2te the differences in attractiveness of pollen of some cultivated and ornamental apples to honeybees. We applied biotest with equal amounts of hand collected pollen samples and by a nucleus of bees with brood. The evaluation was based on the number of visitation by foraging honeybees on the samples during the time of the experiment which was determined. Pollenkitt samples were also tested in a separate experiment. The data were analysed by variance analysis and significant differences were found according to the number of bee visitation in the attractiveness of the pollen and pollenkitt samples of apple cultivars. The visualisation of pollenkitt was done by light microscope and SEM.
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