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Life History of Bees - Hy - 1

The document discusses the practical maximum marks for a project on apiculture. It outlines requirements for a report on a visit to an apiary including studying bee pasturage, bee activity in fields, and making a herbarium of nectar plants. It also requires submitting apiculture products. The test covers honey bee life cycles, species identification, nesting habits, and colony organization. Key honey bee species discussed are Apis cerana indica, Apis mellifera, Apis florea, and Apis dorsata. Castes of honey bees including queens, drones, and workers are described along with their characteristics.

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234 views30 pages

Life History of Bees - Hy - 1

The document discusses the practical maximum marks for a project on apiculture. It outlines requirements for a report on a visit to an apiary including studying bee pasturage, bee activity in fields, and making a herbarium of nectar plants. It also requires submitting apiculture products. The test covers honey bee life cycles, species identification, nesting habits, and colony organization. Key honey bee species discussed are Apis cerana indica, Apis mellifera, Apis florea, and Apis dorsata. Castes of honey bees including queens, drones, and workers are described along with their characteristics.

Uploaded by

Chirag Education
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Practical Maximum Marks: 100

I. Project Submission (ppt submission)


1. Visit to an apiary/honey processing unit and submission of a report (20
points)
a. Study of bee pasturage
b. Visit to fields/gardens/orchards for studying the bee activity (role in
pollination and nectar collection).
c. Making of herbarium of nectar and pollen yielding flowering plants

2. Submission of a few products obtained from apiculture industry (5points)

II. Test: 15 points (Theory; HK)


Study of the life history of honey bee
Apis cerana indica and Apis mellifera
from specimen/ photographs:
Egg, larva, pupa, adult (queen, drone, worker)
Honey Bee: Systematics Position

Species- i-dorsata, ii-florea, iii-indica, iv-mellifera


Division of honey bee

 Two small honey bee species (Micrapis) with single exposed


combs: Apis florea and Apis andreniformis

 Two large honey bee species (Megapis) with single exposed


combs: Apis dorsata and, Apis laboriosa

 Four middle sized honey bee species (Apis) nesting with multiple
combs in cavities: Apis mellifera, Apis cerana, Apis koshevnicovi,
Apis nigrocincta.
Red Dwarf honey bees (Apis florea):
Common, open-air, non-domesticated, small and red

Apis florea Nest of Apis florea


Black Dwarf honey bees (Apis andreniformis)
Rare, open-air, non domesticated, small black sister of Apis florea

Apis andreniformis Nest of Apis andreniformis


Giant honey bee (Apis dorsata)
Common, open-air nests, non domesticated, giant
Rock honey bees (Apis laboriosa)
Rare, open-air, non domesticated, giant
from the Himalayas producing “mad honey”
Cavity Nesting Asian honey bee (Apis cerana)
Common, cavity-nesting, domesticated, medium-size
Western honey bee (Apis mellifera)
Common, cavity-nesting, domesticated, medium size
Apis cerana (3 subspecies in India)
A. Cerana cerana in Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir (North India)
A. Cerana indica in Kerala, Tamilnadu and Karnataka. (South India)
A. Cerana himalaya in Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Assam and Meghalaya. (Eastern parts of
India)

Apis mellifera (many subspecies, three groups)


1. Eastern subspecies : i. Apis mellifera remipes (in Iran)
ii. A. mellifera syriaca (in Syria, Israel and Lebanon)
2. European subspecies: i. A. mellifera mellifera (Dark Dutch or German bee)
ii. A. mellifera carnica (Carniolan bee; in Southern Austria)
iii. A. mellifera ligustica (Italian bee; Italy)
iv. A. mellifera caucasica (Caucasican bee; USSR)
3. African subspecies: i. A. Mellifera intermissa (Tellian bee; Morocco and Lybia)
ii. A. mellifera lamarckii (Egyptian bee; restricted to the Nile Valley)
iii. A. mellifera capensis (Cape bee; the only bee which can rear
queen from eggs laid by workers)
iv. A. mellifera adansonii
Honey bee colony organization

 Social insects and live in


colonies

 One queen, thousands of


workers and few
hundreds of drones
Sex differentiation in bees
Castes of Honey bee (Apis mellifera)
The Queen
 A laying queen is the longest bee in the colony
 Large thorax and distended abdomen
 Wings are much shorter in proportion to body
 The queen lays both fertilized and unfertilized eggs
 The queen’s substance- maintains colony cohesion
 Larvae fed on royal jelly becomes queen
 Lives for around three years
The Drone
 Male bees
 Larger and stouter than either the queen or the workers
 Don’t work, don’t make honey and can’t sting
 Impregnate the young queen
 Lives for around two months days
The Worker
 Female but are not capable of reproducing
 They do all the work in the hive (1,500 to 50,000)
 Average life of only 40-50 days during honey flow
season; may extend to six month
Egg

Queen bee lay 1500-2000 eggs per day


↓ Larva
Eggs: measure 1 to 1.5 mm long and look like a tiny
grain of rice.
Eggs laid in individual hexagonal wax cells in the brood Pupa
area of the comb.
After 3 days, eggs hatch and larvae emerge.
↓

Larvae: varies by caste (worker: 6 days, drone: 6.5 days, queen: 5.5 days). Larvae are white and lay in
a curled “C” shape at the bottom of their wax cell.
↓
Pupae: pre-pupal honey bee larvae molt into pupae. Pupae are referred to as “capped brood”
because the cells are capped. pupal developmental time varies by caste (worker: 12 days, drone:
14.5 days, queen: 8 days).
Morphological identification

Abdominal stripes (tomenta) more pronounced in Apis Presence of distal abscissa in Hind wings of bee Apis
cerana cerana
I. Apis cerana indica Indian hive bee / Asian bee

General information
 Native to southern, southeastern, and eastern Asia
 Colonies are relatively small, with only around 6,000 to 7,000 workers
 Apis mellifera colonies can reach sizes of up to 50,000 individuals.

Appearance
 Similar or somewhat smaller than Apis mellifera
 More visible abdominal stripes (v/s mellifera)
 Worker is black with four yellow abdominal stripes
Nesting habit:
 Multiple combs in cavities
 Small entrance
 Store nectar in concentrated form

Character:
 Survive temperatures as low as -0.1ºC, a temperature lethal for other
bee species (Apis mellifera)
 Defensive through heat when invade by hornet. Raises temperature to
by 47 °C (117 °F) by vibrating flight muscles
Apis cernana and its high quality honey:
 Honey production is lower than for Apis mellifera

 Their radius of foraging activity at 2 km is half that of Apis mellifera, and


therefore one colony of Apis cerana produces one quarter of the honey
produced by an Apis mellifera colony

 Selling at costlier price


 Average honey yield of 6-8 kg per colony per year
II. Apis mellifera European bee / Italian bee

 They are also similar in habits to Indian bees, which build parallel combs
 They are bigger than all other honeybees except Apis dorsata
 The average production per colony is 25-40 kg
 They have been imported from European countries (Italy). They are less
prone to swarming and absconding.
Different stages of Life cycle
Different stages of Life cycle
Different
stages of
Life cycle
Different stages of Life cycle
Different stages
of Life cycle
Temporal Polyethism

 Temporal polyethism is the age-


related division of labor that
occurs within honey bee colonies

 Rather than specializing at one


task, the worker bees engaged
into multiple task in predictable
progression as they age

 The behavior is regulated by JH.


The levels of JH vary within a
worker throughout her life.

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