author(s)
Mahesh Kumar, DP Abrol, Devinder Sharma, Uma Shankar Vikram and Amit K Singh

abstract
The study was conduct to determine the effect of artificial diet on colony build when enough floral resources were not available. Six diets were prepared which included Black gram (20) + Yeast (20gm) + Pollen (20g) + Honey (20gm) + glucose (20gm), Soybean flour (60g) + Honey (35g) + Yeast (4g) + Vitamins (1 g/kg) HAU Diet, Defatted soya flour 20gm + skimmed milk powder 25gm + sugar 5gm + pollen (5g) + glucose 10gm + h, Soybean flour (25g) + Yeast (10g) + Pollen (15g) + Skimmed milk powder (5g) + Honey (22.5g) + Sugar (22.5g) GBPUA & T diet, Brewer’s yeast (42g) + Gram (4g) + Skimmed Milk Power (4g) + Sugar (50g) + Pollen (10g) PAU Diet and Control (sugar feeding). The studies revealed that Apis mellifera bees exhibited differential consumption pattern during different weekly intervals throughout the season as per the needs of the colony. The preference of different diets was in the order 3 >4>2>5>1>6. Diet 3 was most preferred followed by 4, 2, 5, 1 and 6 respectively. In case of diet 1 maximum brood area was observed on 6^th July 2017 (1802.8 cm²) which decreased thereafter (1018.6 cm²) on 20^th July 2017 and minimum brood was observed on 14^th September 2017 (107.3cm²). On average overall brood reared on this diet during the entire season was (526.80cm²). There was significant impact of effect of feeding artificial diets on the number of frames covered by bees. The feeding of artificial diet was helpful to maintain the strength of bee colonies. It was very interesting to find that all the diets were superior over control.