LARVAL REARING BY WORKER HONEY BEES LACKING THEIR MANDIBULAR GLANDS: II. REARING BY LARGER NUMBERS OF WORKER BEES

1979 ◽  
Vol 111 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying-Shin Peng ◽  
S. C. Jay

AbstractFurther experiments were done in an attempt to ascertain the significance of the mandibular glands of nurse bees in female caste differentiation. Groups of 200, 10-day-old nurse bees, with their mandibular glands removed, fed female larvae for 80 h in plastic queen cell cups in the laboratory. After this, each larva finished feeding in a 4-day-old queen cell containing "royal jelly"; final development occurred in an artificial pupation dish. Because four adults, classified as "queenlike intermediates," were reared it appears that (1) mandibular gland secretion is less important as a larval food than that of the hypopharyngeal glands, and (2) if a "queen determining substance" exists the mandibular glands are not its only source.

1977 ◽  
Vol 109 (9) ◽  
pp. 1175-1180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying-Shin Peng ◽  
S. C. Jay

AbstractExperiments were done in an attempt to ascertain the significance of the mandibular glands of nurse bees in female caste differentiation. Groups of 30 or 75, 10-day-old nurse bees, with their mandibular glands removed, were caged in the laboratory. Each group was provided with female larvae in plastic queen cell cups. The treated nurse bees were able to rear a few pupae, from these larvae, which were classified as queenlike intermediates while the untreated nurse bees reared pupae or adults which were classified as queens or queenlike intermediates.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. e0248593
Author(s):  
Khalid Ali Khan ◽  
Hamed A. Ghramh ◽  
Zubair Ahmad ◽  
Mogbel A. A. El-Niweiri ◽  
Mohamed Elimam Ahamed Mohammed

Royal jelly (RJ) is an acidic yellowish-white secretion of worker honey bee glands, used as food material of worker bee larvae for the first three days and queen bee larvae for the entire life. It is commercially used in cosmetics and medicinal industry in various parts of the world. This study determined the queen cell acceptance rate and RJ production difference among Italian and Carniolan bee races. Furthermore, the effect of plastic cup cell priming media, diets and seasons were tested on the larval cell acceptance rate and RJ yield of both races. The results indicated that average queen cell acceptance rate was significantly (p<0.001) higher in Italian race (75.53 ± 1.41%) than Carniolan race (58.20 ± 1.30%). Similarly, mean RJ yield per colony significantly (p<0.001) differed between both bee races, which were 13.10 ± 0.42 g and 9.66 ± 0.43 g, in Italian and Carniolan races, respectively. Moreover, priming media, diets and seasons significantly (p<0.001) affected queen cell acceptance rate and RJ production of both bee races. This study would help breeders to select the bees with higher-level of queen cell acceptance rate and RJ production in the future.


Sociobiology ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fábio De Assis Pinto

The hypopharyngeal gland (HG), along with the mandibular gland from Apis mellifera workers plays a fundamental role on the development of the hive. The protein based substances produced by the hypopharyngeal and mandibular glands are two important component of the royal jelly, which is responsible for caste differentiation and used to feed larvae, drones and the queen. Several factors may alter the physiology of glandular structures in honeybees and consequently their role within the beehive, and one of the most important factors is their nutritional status. However, few studies have evaluated the development of HG against different diets on Africanized honeybees. Our experiment was composed of four diets (treatments) offered to different groups of workers: (T1) honey, (T2) honey + soybean extract, (T3) honey + pollen and (T4) sucrose solution. The development of the glands was evaluated in two periods: 7 and 10 days of exposure to the diet types. According to the results, an interference of the diet on the acini area of the HG was observed. Bees that were fed with the sucrose solution or soybean extract presented the smallest acini areas as compared to the other treatments. The time of exposure to the different types of diets also had an effect on acini areas. Worker bees fed with honey and soybean extract for 10 days presented smaller acini areas when compared to bees dissected at the 7th day of exposure to those same diet types. Nevertheless, we also observed that factors other than just nutrition are important to the full development of the HG, such as the stimulus promoted by the young breeds.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (47) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric A. Smith ◽  
Sylvie A. Martin-Eberhardt ◽  
Delaney L. Miller ◽  
Audrey J. Parish ◽  
Irene L. G. Newton

Bombella apis occupies a variety of distinct niches within a honey bee hive, including queen guts, royal jelly, and larval food. In an effort to better understand its evolution and identify signatures of honey bee association, we sequenced a strain isolated from hive honey stores. This genome is 2,086,308 bp long and contains 1,975 protein-coding genes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luiza Diniz Ferreira Borges ◽  
Letícia Leandro Batista ◽  
Serena Mares Malta ◽  
Tamiris Sabrina Rodrigues ◽  
Jéssica Regina da Costa Silva ◽  
...  

AbstractIn bees from genus Melipona, differential feeding is not enough to fully explain female polyphenism. In these bees, there is a hypothesis that in addition to the environmental component (food), a genetic component is also involved in caste differentiation. This mechanism has not yet been fully elucidated and may involve epigenetic and metabolic regulation. Here, we verified that the genes encoding histone deacetylases HDAC1 and HDAC4 and histone acetyltransferase KAT2A were expressed at all stages of Melipona scutellaris, with fluctuations between developmental stages and castes. In larvae, the HDAC genes showed the same profile of Juvenile Hormone titers—previous reported—whereas the HAT gene exhibited the opposite profile. We also investigated the larvae and larval food metabolomes, but we did not identify the putative queen-fate inducing compounds, geraniol and 10-hydroxy-2E-decenoic acid (10HDA). Finally, we demonstrated that the histone deacetylase inhibitor 10HDA—the major lipid component of royal jelly and hence a putative regulator of honeybee caste differentiation—was unable to promote differentiation in queens in Melipona scutellaris. Our results suggest that epigenetic and hormonal regulations may act synergistically to drive caste differentiation in Melipona and that 10HDA is not a caste-differentiation factor in Melipona scutellaris.


2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-128
Author(s):  
Georgios Goras ◽  
Chrysoula Tananaki ◽  
Sofia Gounari ◽  
Elissavet Lazaridou ◽  
Dimitrios Kanelis ◽  
...  

Abstract We investigated the rearing of drone larvae grafted in queen cells. From the 1200 drone larvae that were grafted during spring and autumn, 875 were accepted (72.9%) and reared as queens. Drone larvae in false queen cells received royal jelly of the same composition and of the same amounts as queen larvae. Workers capped the queen cells as if they were drones, 9-10 days after the egg laying. Out of 60 accepted false queen cells, 21 (35%) were capped. The shape of false queen cells with drone larvae is unusually long with a characteristically elongate tip which is probably due to the falling of larvae. Bees start the destruction of the cells when the larvae were 3 days old and maximised it before and after capping. Protecting false queen cells in the colony by wrapping, reversing them upside down, or placing in a horizontal position, did not help. The only adult drones that emerged from the false queen cells were those protected in an incubator and in push-in cages. Adult drones from false queen cells had smaller wings, legs, and proboscis than regular drones. The results of this study verify previous reports that the bees do not recognise the different sex of the larvae at least at the early stage of larval development. The late destruction of false queen cells, the similarity in quality and quantity of the produced royal jelly, and the bigger drone cells, allow for the use of drone larvae in cups for the production of royal jelly.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison McAfee ◽  
Abigail Chapman ◽  
Immacolata Iovinella ◽  
Ylonna Gallagher-Kurtzke ◽  
Troy F. Collins ◽  
...  

Eusocial insects live in teeming societies with thousands of their kin. In this crowded environment, workers combat disease by removing or burying their dead or diseased nestmates. For honey bees, we found that hygienic brood-removal behavior is triggered by two odorants – β-ocimene and oleic acid – which are released from brood upon freeze-killing. β-ocimene is a co-opted pheromone that normally signals larval food-begging, whereas oleic acid is a conserved necromone across arthropod taxa. Interestingly, the odorant blend can induce hygienic behavior more consistently than either odorant alone. We suggest that the volatile β-ocimene flags hygienic workers’ attention, while oleic acid is the death cue, triggering removal. Bees with high hygienicity detect and remove brood with these odorants faster than bees with low hygienicity, and both molecules are strong ligands for hygienic behavior-associated odorant binding proteins (OBP16 and OBP18). Odorants that induce low levels of hygienic behavior, however, are weak ligands for these OBPs. We are therefore beginning to paint a picture of the molecular mechanism behind this complex behavior, using odorants associated with freeze-killed brood as a model.


Animals ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 178
Author(s):  
Roksana Kruszakin ◽  
Paweł Migdal

So far, larval rearing in vitro has been an important method in the assessment of bee toxicology, particularly in pesticide risk assessment. However, natural products are increasingly used to control honey bee pathogens or to enhance bee immunity, but their effects on honey bee larvae are mostly unknown. In this study, laboratory studies were conducted to determine the effects of including selected aqueous plant infusions in the diet of honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) larvae in vitro. The toxicity of infusions from three different plant species considered to be medicinal plants was evaluated: tansy (Tanacetum vulgare L.), greater celandine (Chelidonium majus L.), and coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.). The impact of each on the survival of the larvae of honey bees was also evaluated. One-day-old larvae were fed a basal diet consisting of distilled water, sugars (glucose and fructose), yeast extract, and freeze-dried royal jelly or test diets in which distilled water was replaced by plant infusions. The proportion of the diet components was adjusted to the age of the larvae. The larvae were fed twice a day. The experiment lasted seven days. Significant statistical differences in survival rates were found between groups of larvae (exposed or not to the infusions of tansy, greater celandine, and coriander). A significant decrease (p < 0.05) in the survival rate was observed in the group with the addition of a coriander herb infusion compared to the control. These results indicate that plant extracts intended to be used in beekeeping should be tested on all development stages of honey bees.


2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walerij Isidorow ◽  
Stanisław Witkowski ◽  
Piotr Iwaniuk ◽  
Monika Zambrzycka ◽  
Izabela Swiecicka

Abstract Honey is valued for its therapeutic qualities which are attributed among others to its antibacterial multifactorial properties. However, all the factors that influence these properties have not been identified. The present study is focused on the antibacterial action of fatty acids originating from royal jelly, the larval food of honeybees. Aliphatic C8-C12 acids characteristic of this bee product had previously been identified in more than fifty different samples of honey originating from seven countries and in eleven samples of Polish herbhoney. Experiments were performed to ascertain the influence of acidity on the antimicrobial activity of the acids. In acidic nutrient media all tested aliphatic hydroxyacids and unsaturated dicarboxylic acids demonstrated antibacterial action against different microbes with minimal inhibitory concentrations between 0.048 and 3.125 mM. Our results confirm that part of the antibacterial activity of honey contributes to these compounds of bee origin.


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