Hydrolases of Developing Worker Brood and Newly Emerged Worker of Apis Mellifera Carnica

Previously published data concerning honey bee metabolism, dealt mainly with adult specimens. In most cases, biochemical changes connected with the polyethism of Apis mellifera worker bees were described (Costa and Cruz-Landim, 2005; Elekonich and Roberts , 2005; Roberts and Elekonich, 2005). Little is known about the changes in the metabolism in successive developmental stages of brood (see Hrassnigg and Crai lsheim, 2005). Schmolz et al. (2005) calorimetrically studied the energetics of developmental stages of worker brood and drone brood. Based on this research technique, they indirectly assessed the general rate of brood metabolism. Previous studies were done on the drone brood (Żó ł towska et al., 2007; Lipiński et al., 2008), based on the activity of enzymes and carbohydrate contents. The assumptions of the above authors (Schmolz et al., 2005) concerning significant lowering of the metabolism rate in prepupae stage and of reduced utilization of sugars in favor of lipids in drone pupae, were confirmed. The aim of this work was to investigate the changes in the enzymatic system in 12 developmental stages of worker brood and newly emerging bees. The API ZYM test, which enabled the simultaneous estimation of the activity of the 19 hydrolytic enzymes was used. These enzymes belong to the esterases, glycosidases, and proteinases. Determination of their activity means that an assessment can be made of the changes in their ability to decompose and metabolize lipids, sugars, and proteins in ontogeny of worker brood.