Effects of honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) colony size on the pollination of greenhouse-cultivated watermelon (Citrullus lanatus L.) under forcing cultivation

We investigated the effects of honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) colony size on the pollination of greenhouse-cultivated watermelon grown under the forcing cultivation system. The highest pollination activity of bees was observed (14.3 ± 5.0 honey bees/day) when the bee colony size was 10,000 followed by 7,500 and 5,000 honey bees. There was a positive correlation between the bee colony size and pollination activity (R = 0.262) but insignificant difference in fruit set with different honey bee colony sizes (88%-91%). Evaluation of physical properties revealed that the weight and shape of watermelon were also not significantly different among different colony sizes. However, larger the bee colony size, higher the number of seeds were fertilized and rate of seed fertilization (p > 0.05). Number of seeds and content of sugar were negatively correlated (R = -0.714). Fertilized seeds showed a significant increase in mealy flesh, which has a negative effect on fruit quality, compared with that of the unfertilized seeds. Overall, we found that a colony size of 5,000 honey bees was the most effective for the pollination of watermelon grown under forcing cultivation. A comparison of the effects of bee pollination with those of artificial pollination suggested that artificial pollination can be effectively replaced by bee pollination in the forcing cultivation of watermelon, because fruit set, weight, and shape by bee pollination were similar to those achieved by artificial pollination.