MPhil zoology

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

2. Classification
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Arthropoda
Class Insecta
Order Hymenoptera
Family Apidae
Genus Apis
Honeybee Classification

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

4. Types of honey bees
1. Apis dorsata (Rock bee)
2. Apis indica (Eastern bee)
3. Apis mellifera (European bee)
4. Apis floera (Garden bee)
5. Dammer Bee

5. Apis dorsata (Rock bee)

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)

7. Apis indica (Eastern 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)

9. Apis mellifera (European 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.

11. Apis florea (Garden bee)

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

14. Castes of Honeybees
There are three types or castes in a Bee colony-
1.Queen 2.Workers 3. Drones

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.

16. The QUEEN BEE

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.

18. WORKER BEES

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.

21. DRONE BEES

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.

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.

27. HONEY BEE CELLS

28. HONEY BEE EGGS IN HIVE

29. HONEY BEE LARVAE

30. HONEY BEE ADULTS