complete introduction to Honey Bees and their mode of working

1. Presented by: Muhammad Anas Rasool
Roll NO: 07
B.Sc.(Hons) Agriculture – 1st Semester
Department of Agriculture
Submitted to: Dr. Mubasher Rauf
7/15/2018 1

2. HONEY BEE
SOCIAL-INSECTS RELATED
TO FAMILY APIDAE AND
GENUS APIS,
MOSTLY FOUND IN
TROPICAL AREAS.
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Arthropoda
Class Insecta
Order Hymenoptera
Family Apidae
Genus Apis
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3. HONEY BEE
• Honey bees measure about 15 mm long and are light
brown in color. Honey bees are usually oval-shaped
creatures.
• Apis millifera is most important to humans.
• Bees live in colonies or hives.
• Consist of two pair of wings, five eyes (3 simple & 2
compound).
• Awarded with great blessings of GOD (angle
calculating, sharp mind, discipline).
• They make hive from their wax that is released from
wax glands in abdominal cavity.
• Hive consists of many hexagonal cells in which eggs,
pollen, nectar and honey is kept.
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4. HONEY BEE
PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT:
• When the queen lays an egg, it becomes attached to the
cell by a mucous strand.
• During the first stage of development, the digestive system,
nervous system and outer covering are formed.
• After three days, the eggs will hatch into larvae, which will
be fed by worker honey bees with honey, royal jelly and
other liquids from plants.
• These honey bee larvae have no legs, eyes, antennae or
wings; they resemble a grain of rice with a small mouth.
• They will eat and grow into adult workers, queens or
drones.
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5. HONEY BEE
Bees are divided into 3 main types:
1. Queen bee (female)
2. Worker bees (female)
3. Drone bees (males)
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6. HONEY BEE
1- QUEEN BEE:
• They mate with many drone bees of another hive one time
in their life, collects about 100 millions of sperms but uses
few sperms for laying. Their egg is about 1-1.5 mm in size.
• In oviduct of queen bee, it is decided that which egg is to be
fertilized or not, fertilized eggs then develop into worker
bees and unfertilized eggs develop into drone bees (male
bees).
• They lays eggs (about 2,000/day), after hatching of eggs one
larvae (pupa) is supplied with royal jelly (in its entire life) and
nectar and is cared very carefully, then it becomes a queen
bee after 14 days.
• It is only one in a hive and has large size as compared to
others and manage & organize whole hive.
• Lives for many years (can live for 5 years).
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7. HONEY BEE
2- WORKER BEES:
• They are developed from fertilized eggs and become mature
after 21 days.
• They have a lot of work to do in which guarding, shaping &
organizing of hive and looking after of new bees is included.
• Some of them (foragers) collect nectar and pollens from
flowers and causes pollination.
• Can live for 40 days in summer as they have a lot of work in
those days while can live for about 3 months in winter when
there is very little work to do as compared to summer.
• Sometime lay eggs (infertile) in summer.
• Guard hive by stinging intruders & their stinger comes out of
body in this process and they die, while queen bee can sting
for many times.
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8. HONEY BEE
3- DRONE BEES:
• Drones are male bees, develop from infertile eggs and
become mature in 24 days.
• They have only one duty in their life cycle that is to
mate with queen bees, after mating the queen they
die.
• If they luckily don’t die then they are ejected from nest
as they have performed their duty and now they are
for no purpose in hive.
• In winter season they are also ejected from nest by
queen as there is no mating activity in summer season.
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9. HONEY BEE
MODES OF COMMUNICATION
They communicate by dance or hormones:
• There are two main types of honey bee dances: round dance
and waggle dance. Round dance, as the name indicates, is a
movement in a circle. This is used to indicate the food source is
less than 50 meters from the nest. Waggle dance is a special
pattern while the bee waggles its abdomen and is used for food
located at a distance of more than 150 meters.
• Exact distance can be communicated by duration of the dance. A
longer dance indicates a great distance.
• The dancing worker bee also can indicate direction with the
waggle dance and will move in reference to the sun’s vertical
position.
• They also release pheromone hormones (scents), by smelling it a
bee can identify a queen, drone, invader or another worker bee.
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10. HONEY BEE
PRODUCTS:
1. HONEY,
2. WAX &
3. PROPOLIS.
References: orkin.com & wikipedia.com
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