Boosting honeybee appetites
Newpheromone product aimed atmaking colonies hungrier andmore vigorous during pollination.
By Judie Steeves H
e admits that pheromones are such tiny bits of stuff that it is hard to maintain confidence they’ll work, but entomologist John Borden is quite happy with a new product that improves the vigour of honey bee colonies.
Called SuperBoost, it is a pheromone produced by honey bee larvae. “It tells the worker bees ‘We’re hungry’ so they go out and forage for pollen and nectar,” explains Borden, who is chief scientific officer at Contech in Delta. “When we place SuperBoost in a hive it tells the workers that there are more larvae present than there actually are and the workers forage
JUDIE STEEVES SuperBoost pheromone treatment being introduced into a beehive.
more vigourously,” he explains. Borden has been working with pheromones all his employed life, and has already retired once, from Simon Fraser University, where he brought along several new generations of entomologists during his career.
The new product is now available, although he continues to test and
experiment with it, to learn more about the most useful ways to employ it.
Borden and his team at Contech have just set up a further experiment to test its usefulness in overwintering hives. He plans to try leaving it in the hives over this winter, while maintaining untreated control hives and hives where it is removed after
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Contact: John Gibeau President, Honeybee Centre Cellular (604) 317-2088
Email:
Gibeau@HoneybeeCentre.com British Columbia Berry Grower • Winter 2010-11 11
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