The impact of coloured lights on night-time colony management of the African honey bee (Apis mellifera adansonii)

Torchlight plays an important part during colony inspection and honey harvesting in the tropics. The impact of coloured lights on night – time colony management of the African honey bees (Apis mellifera adansonii) was investigated in a Gmelina arborea plantation, Obubra, Nigeria. A Tanzanian top-bar bee hive coated with bee wax at the inner surface to attract bees and four identical torches modified to emit green, blue, red and white (control) lights were used. The four colours served as treatments for the study. The experiment was conducted for four weeks during the wet season in June/July, 2010. The mean numbers of honeybees attracted to each coloured light were: white (143.00), blue (122.50), green (97.75) and red (85.00). Analysis of variance showed that there were significant differences (0.001, p ≤ 0.05) among the various coloured lights in relation to number of bees attracted to each light while the Fisher’s Least Significant Difference (LSD) revealed no significant difference between green and red coloured lights (0.274, p ≤ 0.05) alone. The red and green lights are therefore recommended for management of African honeybees at night.