1. APICULTURE –
TYPES OF HONEY BEES
AND
LIFE CYCLE
Dr. S. N. Bhalerao
Associate Professor
Department Of Zoology
Anantrao Pawar Arts, Commerce & Science College,
Pirangut, Tal. Mulshi, Dist. Pune
3. • Honey bees are social, flying insects, lives in a colony.
• Honeybees has long straw like tongue to suck the nector.
• The hive of honeybees consist of a Queen bee, few Drones and
thousands of Worker bees.
• Thus they show a Polymorphic colony organization.
• Honey bees collect nector and pollen from flowering plants.
• Honey is stored in Honey cells prepared by worker bees by braking
Sucrose into Glucose and Fructose by regurgitation.
• Once the cell gets filled, it is capped with Bee wax.
INTRODUCTION
6. • It is the largest honeybee. Found all over the Indian sub
mountainous region.
• Builds single large open comb on high branches of trees and rocks.
• Produces large quantity of honey, approximately 30 to 35 kg per
year.
• This bee is ferocious, stings may cause fever and sometimes even
death.
• Thus it is difficult to domesticate and rear.
• These bees shift their colonies quite often.
1. Apis dorsata (Rock bee)
8. • These bees are larger than Apis florae but smaller
than Apis mellifera (medium sized).
• Hive consists of several parallel combs in dark places
such as cavities of Tree, Trunks, Mud walls, etc.
• It produces honey about 6 to 8 kg per year per colony.
• This bee is not so ferocious and can be domesticated.
• These are more prone to swarming and absconding.
• These are native of India/Asia.
2. Apis indica (Eastern bee)
10. 3. Apis mellifera (European bee)
• These bees are also similar in habits to Indian bees, which build
parallel combs.
• These are bigger than all other honeybees except Apis dorsata.
• The average production of honey per colony is 25-40 kg/colony.
• These bees build single small combs in bushes, hedges, etc.
• They have been imported from European countries.
• These bees are less prone to swarming and absconding.
12. • These bees gets easily domesticated.
• They build single vertical combs.
• They also construct comb in open of the size of palm in
branches of bushes, hedges, buildings, caves, etc.
• They produce about half a kilo of honey per year per hive.
• Their rearing is difficult, as they frequently change their place.
• The size of the bees is smallest among four Apis species
described and smaller than Indian bee.
• They distribute only in plains.
4. Apis floera (Garden bee)
13. • Besides the true honey bees, there are two species of
stingless or Dammer bees,
A. Melipona B. Trigona
• These bees occur in our country in abundance.
• These bees are much smaller than the true honey bees.
• They build irregular combs of wax and resinous substances in
crevices and hollow tree trunks.
• The stingless bees have the importance in the pollination of various
food crops.
• It can be domesticated, but the honey yield per hive per
year is very less approximately 100 gm.
5. Dammer Bee
15. The Queen Bee
• Unique member in colony and is a diploid, fertile female.
• The size of the body of queen is much larger than other
castes of bees in the colony.
• It has a defense organ called sting at the tip of the abdomen
that helps in egg-laying / ovipositor.
• Queen lays eggs for about 1000 to 1500 eggs per day.
• It lives for about two to three years.
17. The Worker bee
• It is a diploid, sterile female and smallest in size but
in majority in a bee colony.
• They collect nector, pollen and produce royal jelly.
• They raise larvae and young ones.
• They clean the comb, produce wax, construct the beehive,
defend and protect the hive.
• They clear the debris and the dead bees and maintain
the temperature of the hive.
19. Types of Worker Bees
Nurse workers: Serve the queen with royal jelly, larvae
and drones with honey and beebread.
House workers: They perform house cleaning, comb
building, accepting nectar and pollen
from foragers and also guard the hive.
Field workers: Travel to distant places to collect nector,
pollen grains from flowers and resin from
the trees.
20. The Drone Bee
• It is haploid, fertile male and born out of unfertilized
eggs in the brood chamber.
• The males are larger than workers, quite noisy, have
large wings, robust body, reduced mouthparts and are
unable to gather food.
• They voraciously eat food fed to them by the worker bees,
stingless, their sole function is to fertilize queen during
nuptial flight and then they starve to death.
• The number of drones in a colony varies from 200 to 300,
develops parthenogenetically from unfertilized eggs and
live only for a short period of time.
22. Bee Colony
• Honey bee nest is called Bee Hive or Comb.
• An average sized bee colony consists of 30 to 50 thousand
bees.
• There are three types of individuals in a colony, the Queen,
Worker and Drone.
• Number of workers bee decides the colony as termed ‘weak’
or ‘strong’
• Due to the existence of several morphological forms, bees
are said to be a polymorphic species.
23. Honey bee has two sexes
Male
Female
(Has two Castes)
Drones
Queens
Workers
• The males or Drones are larger than the workers and are stingless.
• These Drones are present only in early summer.
• The workers and queens have stingers.
• Only Queen bee is capable of laying eggs.
24.
25. • Eggs laid by Queen bee hatch in three days to develop into larvae,
known as grubs.
• Grubs are fed royal jelly, later future queens are continued on diet.
• Fully grown grubs transform into pupae.
• Queens emerge in 16 days, Workers in about 21 days (on average),
and Drones in 24 days.
• The old queen typically leave the hive by the time the new queen
emerges.
Honeybee Life Cycle
26. • Eggs laid by Queen are either unfertilized or fertilized.
• Unfertilized eggs develop into drones.
• Fertilized eggs develop into females, which may be either
workers or virgin queen.
• Eggs destined to become queen are deposited in queen cells
and are fed on royal jelly.
• Those not fed diet consisting solely of royal jelly, develops into
workers.
