BackBeekeeping Made Easy The Honey Bee
The Honey Bee (Apis mellifera)
We will begin this study by examining the honey bee. Honey bees are social bees. This means that they have developed highly specialized skills which contribute to the well being of the entire colony. As a colony, the individual must work for the good of the whole. In this highly specialized world, two caste have developed. A female and male caste. The female caste is composed of perfect females and imperfect females. These are called queens and workers. As we look at the bees in a hive, we will need to know what each type of bee looks like, and recognize the special job each has.
A
honey bee is not large. It is composed of three distinct parts.
We are going to keep the anatomy of the honey bee quite simple. It is important for you to understand that all hymenoptera have three body sections and they are (head, thorax, and abdomen). As you learned in The World of Bees, all bees are covered in body hair. You will not need a microscope to see them.
The
inhabitants of the hive include a large number of worker bees (female), at most
several hundred drone bees (male) and one queen
(female). In highly socialized bees, division of labor
is essential for survival and the honey bee colony expresses this in many
ways. The worker bees are highly specialized. As female, they have
dormant ovaries and can lay unfertile eggs but their major task is to care for
the collection of food, care of the young bees, defense of the hive, and house
cleaning. The queen is a specialized egg laying female. She can not
care for her young such as feeding etc. nor can she gathered food. The
population of a hive of bees is in direct proportion to the ability of the queen
to lay eggs unless some other environmental condition exist -- disease or lack
of forging plants. The drone is also highly specialized -- his purpose is
to provide the queen with sperm for future generations.
Since most of your time will be spent studying honey bees, we are going to examine the worker in some detail. It is the worker that contributes to the amount of honey produced and the amount of work collectively done by the hive. The diagram below is taken from The Behaviour and Social Life of Honeybees by Ronald Ribbands.
The
glands in many instances controls what the female worker bee is able to
do. We will take a brief look at some of them.
Pharyngeal glands -- Located in the head-- These glands are the largest glands in the worker honey bee. These glands produce the bee milk fed to young larva.
Mandibular glands -- Located in the head -- Have to do with production of or be responsible for some of the different ingredients of the saliva-- to be specific they secrete 10-hydroxy-2-decenoic acid, the main lipoid content of larval food.
Postgenal glands -- Unknown function
Thoracic glands -- Located in the thorax -- We have shown these glands to indicate that the thorax has a set of glands but these glands are derived from the cocoon-spinning gland of the larva and are well developed in workers, queens and drones. They are said to secrete an alkaline fatty substance.
The glands located in the abdomen are extremely important to the functions regarding pheromones in the worker bee.
Wax glands -- One of the important functions of worker bees is to build wax comb (the basic structure of the nest). The wax glands are located on the underside of the abdomen of segments four to seven. These glands secrete wax in liquid form onto the wax plates and harden into wax scales which are then used by the bees to construct comb.
Scent gland -- This is a gland located at the very rear of the bee above the sting. Bees usually will expose the ducts in this gland with the abdomen elevated and fan its wings. It is called the Nasonov scent gland and the pheromone produced attracts other bees. It is often observed clearly when bees are landing in a swarm. The bees which already have landed will be seen with the gland exposed attracting other bees to the location.
Sting gland -- The sting gland releases an alarm pheromone which attracts other bees to the site where the alarm is given. This pheromone is used "to mark an enemy and make it a more obvious target." From Pheromones of Social Bees by John B. Free.
A honey bee has a compound eye. They do not see as we do! They have no lens to focus on objects as we do. The honey bee eye is made up a large number of facets. Bees see their world as a mosaic because each facet is like a narrow tube which is stimulated by light rays. Thus each bee perceives the field of vision from these facets and the number of facets will determine the amount of detail the bee will see. These facets are called ommatidia. It has been pointed out by C.R. Ribbands in his outstanding book The Behaviour and Social Life of Honeybees published by the Bee Research Association in England that the "acuteness of vision varies inversely with the angle of the visual field which is covered by each tube." Thus in every day terms, a bees eyes are a bundle of tubes set in the side of the bees head and each tube sees only a small part of the entire scene. However, this book estimates the number of facets in bees as follows: worker bees with 6300, a queen with 3900, and a drone with 13,000. In various studies it has been determined that the honey bee can distinguish between two squares of light when the brightness of one is reduced to 70% of the other. In addition, their eyes function more efficiently along a narrow vertical line and definition drops off as the distance between the object and the eye increases. From a practical standpoint, the honey bee can see vertical objects and distinguish lines but not shapes such as circles, triangles, and squares. The studies by Hertz clearly show that the bees preferred those patterns that were broken rather than solid. In addition, a scientist by the name of Wolf, found that bees react to objects that move more than to objects that are fixed
In addition to the two compound eyes, bee have three ocelli located on top of their head. Ocelli are found in almost all flying insects. Many experiments have been conducted on finding out just what purpose the ocelli serve. It is clear from this research that the ocelli are of special value to flight
I would like to point out the practical application of what scientist have discovered. As a beekeeper, one should realize that vertical objects are more noticeable to bees than horizontal objects. Also, objects that move are more noticeable than objects that remain still. Thus, if you are in the presence of bees, rapid movement will be noticed by them more than standing perfectly still and standing up will be noticed by them more than laying down. So, it is wise advice from beekeepers not to slap at flying bees because the bee sees the rapid movement and reacts to it. Slow movement is better than rapid movement.
In addition much research has been conducted on the color that honey bees are able to see. Karl von Frisch did much in this area and found that bees did not distinguish various shades of gray but that they did distinguish various colors and ultraviolet. The ultraviolet spectrum replaces the red spectrum in the honey bee thus the bee can distinguish the following colors: Ultraviolet, blue-violet, blue-green, orange-yellow.
Research has found that bees are attracted to sugars (sucrose, glucose, and fructose). They can distinguish the sugar concentration of a sugar solution with their mouth parts and if very weak find it less attractive. This may account for the foraging habits of bees. Some plants offer a very weak nectar secretion and thus the bees are not attracted to that particular plant. Again Karl von Frisch did an amazing amount of research in this area of study and it would be worth your while to read his book, Bees, their vision, chemical senses and language.
Odor perceptions of the honey bee
Much research has been conducted on odor perceptions of the honey bee. Scents are perceived by the antennae of the honey bee. This was discovered by amputation of both antennae and it has been found that the odor perceptions are located in the eight terminal segments of both antennae. In additional studies, it has been determined that honey bees react to much lower concentrations of odors than man. (From The Behaviour and Social Life of Honeybees by Ronald Ribbands) Thus the honey bee can detect very slight odors (pheromones) and distinguish hive mates from those of a different hive. More will be discussed on this topic in regard to behavior characteristics which are affected by the pheromones released by the glands of honey bees.
Sound/Vibration perception of the honey bee
Honey bees do not have ears as warm blooded animals do. Sound waves are conveyed by very small vibrations of solids, liquids, or gasses. Honey bees detect these vibrations through their legs and it has been shown that mechanical vibrations cause the honey bee leg to respond. It is also believed that the bees antennae are sensitive to vibrations when they touch other bees and may contribute to communication of dancing bees and the piping noise made by the queen. In a practical sense, when the lawnmower creates sound to us, it is creating vibrations (sound waves) which are transferred to a solid (the walls and floor of the bee hive) which are then detected by the feet of the honey bee. The further away the lawnmower is from the hive the lower the vibration level.
What have we learned: Bees are not like humans, they:
References for Further Reading:
Topics to explore: