The individual roles of honeybee workers and drones in heat regulation were investigated using single combs of bees and brood (about 1,000 individuals) placed in boxes at 15 degrees C. After 1 h and before cluster formation, I measured the elevation of bee thoracic surface temperature (Tths) above local ambient temperature (Ta). Bees were then left overnight at 15 degrees C. During the preclust...

The eusocial societies of honeybees, where the queen is the only fertile female among tens of thousands sterile worker bees, have intrigued scientists for centuries. The proximate factors, which cause the inhibition of worker bee ovaries, remain largely unknown; as are the factors which cause the activation of worker ovaries upon the loss of queen and brood in the colony. In an attempt to revea...

The gut microbiota plays a key role in the development and health of bumble bees. Male bees are important for reproductive activity colony, yet there few studies on their microbiota. By using qPCR, we found that significant changes total bacteria six genera from different developmental age points males. And compare male with workers. results indicate Gilliamella, Snodgrassella, Lactobacillus do...

The hallmark of eusociality is the reproductive division of labour, in which one female caste reproduces, while reproduction is constrained in the subordinate caste. In adult worker honeybees (Apis mellifera) reproductive constraint is conditional: in the absence of the queen and brood, adult worker honeybees activate their ovaries and lay haploid male eggs. Here, we demonstrate that chemical i...

Behavioral development in the adult worker honey bee (Apis mellifera), from performing tasks inside the hive to foraging, is associated with an increase in the blood titer of juvenile hormone III (JH), and hormone treatment results in precocious foraging. To study behavioral development in the absence of JH we removed its glandular source, the corpora allata, in 1-day-old adult bees. The age at...

Honey bee colonies are subject to numerous pathogens and parasites. Interaction among multiple pathogens and parasites is the proposed cause for Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a syndrome characterized by worker bees abandoning their hive. Here we provide the first documentation that the phorid fly Apocephalus borealis, previously known to parasitize bumble bees, also infects and eventually kil...

In Europe and North America honey bees cannot be kept without chemical treatments against Varroa destructor. Nevertheless, in Brazil an isolated population of Italian honey bees has been kept on an island since 1984 without treatment against this mite. The infestation rates in these colonies have decreased over the years. We looked for possible varroa-tolerance factors in six Italian honey bee ...

Aasrancr: Two African races of the honey bee (Äpis mellifera capansis and A. m. scutellatal have a signilicantly shorter postcapping stage of worker brood than A. rn. carnica. An average within-race heritability of this character is estimated as h2 = 0.8. Reciprocal crosses between the races show that the duration of the postcapping stage also is maternaffy affected (m = 0.23). As the reproduct...