Longevity, food consumption, and foraging performance of Apis cerana and Apis mellifera in mixed colonies

Apis cerana is an endemic species of honey bee in Asia. A. cerana is believed to have better adaptation to scattered nectar sources than Apis mellifera, which implies that honey can be harvested from A. cerana colonies, but A. mellifera will starve at the same location. We hypothesize that there are differences in foraging performance, worker longevity, and daily sugar consumption between A. cerana and A. mellifera workers. These parameters in both species were determined. A. cerana had longer longevity than A. mellifera if longevity was measured in caged bees without pollen or in mixed species colonies with A. mellifera queens, but A. mellifera had much longer longevity when measured inside cages provided with pollen. A. cerana also had more foraging trips and higher proportion of foragers than A. mellifera in mixed colonies. The daily sugar consumption of A. cerana workers was 32% of that of A. mellifera, perhaps mainly due to the smaller biomass of A. cerana workers. In addition, A. cerana workers showed significantly lower variance in daily sugar consumption. In conclusion, A. cerana has more foraging trips, higher forager proportion, less sugar consumption, and longer survival than those of A. mellifera, when measured inside the same colonies. These differences might explain why during a dearth or in scattered resource areas, A. cerana can store or produce more honey than A. mellifera.