Effect of larval nutrition on the development and mortality of Galleria mellonella (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae)
KAUR, Abedelsalam Anwa r Mohamed, Mohamed Javed Ansari, AHMAD AL-Ghamdi, Mohamed Omar Mohamed and MANPREET . 2014
The greater wax moth or honeycomb moth, Galleria mellonella
L. (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) is the major destructive
and economically important pest of wax comb because
of their feeding habits and tunnelling through the combs
(Jackman and Drees 1998; Chandel et al. 2003). The moth
is widely distributed throughout the world, causing serious
problems in temperate, tropical and subtropical beekeeping
regions, where the warm temperature favour the rapid development
of the moth (Spangler 1989). Also, the development
and metamorphosis of G. mellonella have been reported to
be influenced by relative humidity and diet (Abdel-Naby et
al. 1983; Mohamed 1983; Gulati and Kaushik 2004). Wax
moth damage only during their larval stage. It has been
suggested that the larvae obtain nutrients from honey, castoff
pupal skins, pollen, wax and other impurities found in
the beeswax, but not the beeswax itself (Jindra and Sehnal
1989). Nevertheless, utilizing the beeswax by G. mellonella
larvae was stated by Niemierko and Wlodawer (1950), thus
the larvae can obtain a large amount of energy from wax,
yet wax may not provide sufficient other materials e.g. protein,
for successful development. Also, in the recent years,
researches have focused on the economic importance of the
greater wax moth due to its susceptibility to a wide range of
Effect of larval nutrition on the development and mortality
of Galleria mellonella (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae)
Efecto de la nutrición larval en el desarrollo y mortalidad de Galleria mellonella (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae)
Abedelsalam Anwa r Mohamed1, Mohamed Javed Ansari2, AHM AD AL-Ghamdi3,
Mohamed Omar Mohamed4 and MANPREE T KAUR5
Abstract: The greater wax moth, Galleria mellonella, is an important pest of beekeeping industry. The effects of
five natural diet materials on the developmental biology and mortality of all life stages of the greater wax moth were
investigated in a laboratory trial. Effect of all five natural diets on the developmental biology and mortality varied
significantly. New wax comb (NW) was found to be the poorest larval diet inducing prolonged immature stage duration,
shortening adult moth longevity, decreasing egg productivity, retarding oviposition, prolonging the entire life-cycle
duration and causing significantly higher overall life stage mortality. In contrast, feeding larvae on diets of old wax
comb (OW), old wax comb containing 10% w/w added pollen (OWP), new wax comb containing 10% w/w added
pollen (NWP), and bee-collected pollen (BP), positively affected the development and vitality of all life stages. The
significance of these results with respect to the control measures are proposed and discussed.
Key words: Greater wax moth. Galleria mellonella. Larval nutrition. Development. Wax comb.
Resumen: La polilla mayor de la cera, Galleria mellonella, es una plaga importante en la apicultura. Se evaluaron
los efectos de cinco materiales naturales encontrados en su dieta bajo condiciones de laboratorio. Todas las dietas
afectaron la biología del desarrollo así como la mortalidad, la cual varió significativamente. El panal nuevo de cera
(PN) representó la dieta más pobre para las larvas al inducir una prolongada duración de la etapa inmadura, acortar la
longevidad de adultos, disminuir la productividad de huevos, retardar la oviposición, alargar la duración total del ciclo
de vida y, en general, inducir una mortalidad significativamente mayor. Por el contrario, la alimentación de las larvas
con las otras dietas (i.e. panal viejo (PV), panal viejo con polen 10% w/w (PV + P), panal nuevo con polen 10% w / w
(PN + P) y polen de abeja recogido (PA), favorecieron el desarrollo y la vitalidad de todas las etapas de desarrollo. Se
discute la importancia de estos resultados a la luz de medidas de control.
Palabras clave: Gran polilla de la cera. Galleria mellonella. Nutrición larval. Desarrollo. Panal de cera.
biological control agents, for instance, entomopathogenic
nematodes, viruses, fungi along with the natural enemies
of predators and parasites (Dindo et al. 2001; Armendariz
et al. 2002; Ueno 2002; Ansari et al. 2003; Parthasarathy
and Rabindra 2003; Shapiro-Ilan et al. 2003; Tkaczuk et
al. 2003; Hussaini 2003). Accordingly, mass rearing of the
greater wax moth has been experimented, but mostly on
artificial diets, to study various biological parameters viz,
duration of developmental life stages, fertility and survival,
before choosing the tested materials as suitable diets. Artificial
diet composition was described and modified in previous
works (Chandel et al. 2003; Coskun et al. 2006; Birah
et al. 2008; Kulkarni et al. 2012; Ellis et al. 2013).
Some Candida species are found as endosymbionts in most healthy individuals. C.
Propolis is a regional strongly differing heterogeneous glue material generated by honeybees using plant resins and beeswax.
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