DOI: 10.5061/dryad.dncjsxm83
title: Data from: Towards holistic colony feeding: Effects of vitamin supplementation on summer and winter honeybee workers, Apis mellifera

description: In managed western honeybee, Apis mellifera, colonies, vitamins are often
 neglected when it comes to supplementary feeding despite their importance
 for health. Moreover, the potential links of vitamin feeding to longevity,
 food consumption and adult dry weight are poorly understood. Finally,
 comparative nutritional studies of short-lived summer workers and
 long-lived winter workers are currently lacking. Here, in a fully-crossed
 design, multivitamin supplementation of vitamins A, D, E, K, C, B1, B2,
 B3, B5, B6, B8, B9 and B12 (N=13), titrated in three different dosages
 were fed to summer and winter workers in two trials. In standard
 laboratory hoarding cages, experimental workers were assigned one of eight
 treatments: Sucrose, Sucrose + Pollen, Vitamin 1, Vitamin 1 + Pollen,
 Vitamin 2, Vitamin 2 + Pollen, Vitamin 3, Vitamin 3 + Pollen (N=8
 treatments, 26 workers/cage, N=64 cages/phase, N = 3328 total workers).
 Regardless of season, significant consumption polynomial trends were
 revealed; however, no significant differences in sucrose and pollen
 consumption were found. Likewise, none of the used multivitamin dosages
 did significantly improve any of the measured parameters. On the other
 hand, ad libitum access to pollen consistently increased both weight and
 lifespan, reinforcing pollen as critical to honeybee health. Additionally,
 the data clearly show that summer and winter workers bees display very
 similar significant patterns of dry weight and longevity. In particular,
 summer bees lived longer than winter ones. In light of well-known
 differences between summer and winter workers in the field, in particular
 longevity, these results are unexpected. Therefore, improved laboratory
 settings for honeybees seem to be required to obtain more biologically
 relevant data and ultimately improve managed A. mellifera health.
description: # Data from: Towards holistic colony feeding: Effects of vitamin
 supplementation on summer and winter honeybee workers, Apis mellifera
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.dncjsxm83](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.dncjsxm83) ## Description of the data and file structure The following data are from the in-revision publication "Towards holistic colony feeding: effects of vitamin supplementation on summer and winter honeybee workers, Apis mellifera" submitted to *PLOS One* The data was collected and processed by the lead author, Andrew F Brown.  The data were taken at the Institute of Bee Health in Liebefeld, Switzerland, from May - December 2021. It contains survival data (time-to-event, Kaplan Meier Survival Analysis), sucrose consumption data through time (n=24 days), pollen consumption data (n=24 days), sucrose-pollen ratio data (n=24 days), summer bee dry weight, and winter bee dry weight. The data are in .xls format, with 10 individually labeled tabs, each associated to the above-mentioned data. ### Files and variables #### File: Final-Multivitamin-2021-PlosOne.xls **Description:** see full description below The Excel file (.xls) entitled "Final-Multivitamin-2021-Apidologie.xls" contains 10 tabs: 1. Winter 2021 Survival 2. Summer 2021 Survival 3. Summer-Winter Control Survival 4. Summer 2021 Dry Weight 5. Winter 2021 Dry Weight 6. Winter 2021 Pollen Consumption 7. Winter 2021 Sucrose Consumption 8. Summer Sucrose Consumption 9. Summer Pollen Consumption 10. Protein - Carbohydrate ratio Tabs 1-3 have the following columns: * Cage - unique ID associated with each cage/treatment * day - the length (in days) of the experiment * individual - unique ID associated with each bee/treatment/cage * treatment - associated assigned treatment (n=8) * removed - how many individuals were removed on that particular day * status - for Kaplan-Meier analysis, where 1==died naturally, and 0==right censored Tabs 4-5 have the following columns: * cage - unique ID associated to each cage/treatment * treatment - associated assigned treatment (n=8) * day - time points, i.e., 2 incremental periods (n=2) where bees were removed from the experiment * milligrams - weight given in milligrams * bee id - unique ID associated to each bee Tabs 6-9 have the following columns: * cage - unique ID associated to each cage/treatment * treatment - associated assigned treatment (n=8) * day - specific time point that data was taken (length: 1 - 24) * consumption - amount consumed (in milligrams) Tab 10 has the following columns: * cage - unique ID associated to each cage/treatment * treatment - associated assigned treatment (n=8) * day - specific time point that data was taken (length: 1 - 24) * sucrose consumption - amount of sucrose consumed (in milligrams) * season - summer or winter (n=2 factors) * pollen consumption - amount of pollen consumed (in milligrams) * ratio - a ratio (%) of pollen / sucrose consumption. The R file, called "Submission_Brown_et_al_2025_PlosOne.R", contains all the code used in data analysis, and is commented and easy to follow for independent verification. ## Code/software The R code (written with R version 4.4.1 (2024-06-14) -- "Race for Your Life") is a detailed file with all data analysis associated with the current publication. The code is commented and indicates to the reviewer (or person of interest) which file to upload prior to running the script. All necessary packages are included as well.