Abstract:
All edible insects and honey bees are important to our food system. This study seeks to investigate the link between pest management practices in apiary systems and entomophangy (the human consumption of insects). The study will provide background information on beekeeping and entomophagy, examine a sustainable a mite control practices called drone brood culling. This practice involves establishment of drone brood as varroa mite control trap and then removing drone, diseased, damaged bee comb from Colonies for varroa mite control. Beekeepers will provide samples of worker and drone brood combs to examine the mite levels in the two brood types and whether the cull bee brood acts as a trap. In addition, the impact on the levels will be examined to elucidate ways of lowering mites’ levels at different seasons, examine the willingness of beekeepers to utilize culled bee brood into formulation of poultry feed additive known curl brood additives and willing to sell their culled brood to research centre, then evaluate how this practice will be implemented and explores proper ways in which curl brood can be better integrated into a sustainable feed or food system. Results will be presented in graphs and tables reflecting effectiveness of the methods of controlling mites for effective production of bees and feed nutritional composition.
Keywords: Bee brood (Apismellifera), additives, chicken feed, food security.
