Bees

Question 1

What is particular about the honey bee Apis mellifera?

Answer 1

Only colony that overwinters, colony dies out and queen hibernates over winter and they start a new colony in the spring

Question 2

What is pollen for bees?

Answer 2

• Only source of protein
• 10 essential amino acids

Question 3

Why is monoculture bad for bees?

Answer 3

No one pollen is a complete diet so need a mixture of pollens

Question 4

What is a bee’s ‘waggle dance’?

Answer 4

Direction and length of waggle given, detected by others antennae, gives information about where new flowers are. 1s = 1km. Sun is their reference point. Bees have 5 eyes and 3 small one on top if head are for telling where the sun is, which they can detect even if fairly cloudy.

Question 5

How does the population of the bee colony change throughout the year?

Answer 5

• 60,000 female workers, 10,000 workers in winter
• 1 female queen
• 500 male drones, 0 male drones in the winter

Question 6

How are there more females than males in a colony?

Answer 6

• Queen able to store and control use of sperm
• Female (worker) – fertilised egg, 32 chromosomes
• Male (drone) – unfertilised egg, 16 chromosomes

Question 7

Describe the parthenogenesis of bees.

Answer 7

Queen lowers into a comb and deposits egg there. 3 days will curl into a larvae and then grow when sealed over with wax where it pupates for 12 days. Then emerges as a young bee. Whole process is 21 days. Pollen is main food fed to larvae, stored next to these combs. Goes out foraging at 3 weeks old

Question 8

List the threats facing bees.

Answer 8

Loss of habitat
Brood diseases
Adult bee diseases
Varroa destructor

Question 9

Name and describe 3 adult bee diseases.

Answer 9

Nosema apis and ceraneae – spore forming sporidium. Diarrhoea in the colony

Acarine – mites in the trachea

Viruses – a lot of these are transmitted through varroa mite

Question 10

Distinguish European and American Foulbrood.

Answer 10

• American and European foulbrood are notifiable diseases – both are endemic in the UK.
• These affect the development stages – European at larval stage, American at pupal stage.
• American is spore forming bacteria that essential melts colony and is very persistent in the environment.
• European foulbrood bacteria goes into gut of larvae and competes with larvae for food and larvae starves and dies.
• Only way to control these is to destroy the colony and disinfect all the equipment

Question 11

What is the affect of sac and chalk brood?

Answer 11

Sac brood dies and becomes a fluid filled sac

Chalk brood mummifies these larvae

Question 12

What is a varroa destructor?

Answer 12

Virus transmitter, biggest threat to honey bees. Reproduces in pupating larvae and feeds on larvae and transmits viruses into the bees. When not reproducing in the cells, mites will tuck up under the plates of the abdomen. Problem is not the mites themselves but the viruses they transmit that cause issue for the colony. Issues such as paralysis, deformed wing, black queen cell

Question 13

How are brood diseases treated?

Answer 13

Destruction, antibiotics used to be used, not longer, and frame changes/shook swarm but only for colonies with low levels of European foul brood disease

Question 14

How are nosema species treated in bees?

Answer 14

Hygiene and re-queen

Question 15

How are varroa controlled?

Answer 15

• Pyrethroids – fluvalinate, flumethrin
• Apivar – amitraz
• Organic acids – formic, oxalic, lactic
• Organic oils – thymol, vegetable oils

Question 16

How are Asian Hornets a threat to bee populations?

Answer 16

• Feeds on insects – all native pollinators and honey bees
• Each Asian hornet can eat 30-50 bees a day, 11kg of pollinators to feed its colony