1.
Royal jelly
–
Royal jelly is a honey bee secretion that is used in the nutrition of larvae, as well as adult queens. It is secreted from the glands in the hypopharynx of worker bees and this type of feeding triggers the development of queen morphology, including the fully developed ovaries needed to lay eggs. Royal jelly has long been sold as both a dietary supplement and alternative medicine, in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has taken legal action against companies that have used unfounded claims of health benefits to market royal jelly products. There have also documented cases of allergic reactions, namely hives, asthma. However despite this, some studies have shown possible remedial effects against certain types of inflammation. Royal jelly is secreted from the glands in the heads of bees and is fed to all bee larvae, whether they are destined to become drones, workers. After three days, the drone and worker larvae are no longer fed with royal jelly, and it is harvested by humans by stimulating colonies with movable frame hives to produce queen bees. Royal jelly is collected from each individual queen cell when the larvae are about four days old. Therefore, only in cells is the harvest of royal jelly practical. A well-managed hive during a season of 5–6 months can produce approximately 500 g of royal jelly, since the product is perishable, producers must have immediate access to proper cold storage in which the royal jelly is stored until it is sold or conveyed to a collection center. Sometimes honey or beeswax is added to the jelly, which is thought to aid its preservation. Royal jelly is composed of 67% water,12. 5% crude protein, including amounts of many different amino acids. The main acid is the 10-hydroxy-2-decenoic acid, the component of royal jelly that causes a bee to develop into a queen is said to be a single protein that has been called royalactin. The effect seems to be mediated by epidermal growth factor receptor, Royalactin also induced similar phenotypical change in the fruit fly, marked by increased body size and ovary development. However, there is a debate on the reproducibility of this function of Royalactin, the honey bee queens and workers represent one of the most striking examples of environmentally controlled phenotypic polymorphism. Queens constitute the sexual caste and have active ovaries, whereas workers have only rudimentary. The queen/worker developmental divide is controlled epigenetically by differential feeding with royal jelly, a female larva destined to become a queen is fed large quantities of royal jelly, this triggers a cascade of molecular events resulting in development of a queen. It has been shown that this phenomenon is mediated by a modification of DNA known as CpG methylation
2.
Beekeeping
–
Beekeeping is the maintenance of honey bee colonies, commonly in man-made hives, by humans. A beekeeper keeps bees in order to collect their honey and other products that the hive produces, to pollinate crops, a location where bees are kept is called an apiary or bee yard. Depictions of humans collecting honey from wild bees date to 15,000 years ago, beekeeping in pottery vessels began about 9,000 years ago in North Africa. Domestication is shown in Egyptian art from around 4,500 years ago, simple hives and smoke were used and honey was stored in jars, some of which were found in the tombs of pharaohs such as Tutankhamun. At some point humans began to attempt to domesticate wild bees in artificial hives made from logs, wooden boxes, pottery vessels. Traces of beeswax are found in pot sherds throughout the Middle East beginning about 7000 BCE, honeybees were kept in Egypt from antiquity. On the walls of the sun temple of Nyuserre Ini from the Fifth Dynasty, before 2422 BCE, inscriptions detailing the production of honey are found on the tomb of Pabasa from the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, depicting pouring honey in jars and cylindrical hives. Sealed pots of honey were found in the goods of pharaohs such as Tutankhamun. I am Shamash-resh-ușur, the governor of Suhu and the land of Mari and they collect honey and wax, and I know how to melt the honey and wax – and the gardeners know too. Whoever comes in the future, may he ask the old men of the town, thus, They are the buildings of Shamash-resh-ușur, the governor of Suhu, who introduced honey bees into the land of Suhu. In prehistoric Greece, there existed a system of high-status apiculture, as can be concluded from the finds of hives, smoking pots, honey extractors and other beekeeping paraphernalia in Knossos. Archaeological finds relating to beekeeping have been discovered at Rehov, a Bronze and Iron Age archaeological site in the Jordan Valley, Israel. Thirty intact hives, made of straw and unbaked clay, were discovered by archaeologist Amihai Mazar in the ruins of the city, in ancient Greece, aspects of the lives of bees and beekeeping are discussed at length by Aristotle. Beekeeping was also documented by the Roman writers Virgil, Gaius Julius Hyginus, Varro, beekeeping has also been practiced in ancient China since antiquity. The ancient Maya domesticated a separate species of stingless bee, the use of stingless bees is referred to as meliponiculture, named after bees of the tribe Meliponini—such as Melipona quadrifasciata in Brazil. This variation of bee keeping still occurs around the world today, for instance, in Australia, the stingless bee Tetragonula carbonaria is kept for production of their honey. There are more than 20,000 species of wild bees, many others rear their young in burrows and small colonies. Some honey bees are wild e. g. the little honeybee, giant honeybee, beekeeping, or apiculture, is concerned with the practical management of the social species of honey bees, which live in large colonies of up to 100,000 individuals
3.
Egg
–
An egg is the organic vessel containing the zygote in which an animal embryo develops until it can survive on its own, at which point the animal hatches. An egg results from fertilization of an ovum, most arthropods, vertebrates, and mollusks lay eggs, although some do not, such as scorpions and most mammals. Reptile eggs, bird eggs, and monotreme eggs are laid out of water, eggs laid on land or in nests are usually kept within a favorable temperature range while the embryo grows. When the embryo is developed it hatches, i. e. breaks out of the eggs shell. Some embryos have an egg tooth with which to crack, pip. The largest recorded egg is from a shark, and was 30 cm ×14 cm ×9 cm in size. At 1.5 kg and up to 17.8 cm ×14 cm, the bee hummingbird produces the smallest known bird egg, which weighs half of a gram. The eggs laid by some reptiles and most fish can be smaller. Reproductive structures similar to the egg in other kingdoms are termed spores, or in spermatophytes seeds, several major groups of animals typically have readily distinguishable eggs. The most common strategy for fish is known as oviparity. Typically large numbers of eggs are laid at one time and the eggs are left to develop without parental care. When the larvae hatch from the egg, they carry the remains of the yolk in a yolk sac which continues to nourish the larvae for a few days as they learn how to swim. Once the yolk is consumed, there is a point after which they must learn how to hunt. A few fish, notably the rays and most sharks use ovoviviparity in which the eggs are fertilized, however the larvae still grow inside the egg consuming the eggs yolk and without any direct nourishment from the mother. The mother then gives birth to relatively mature young, in certain instances, the physically most developed offspring will devour its smaller siblings for further nutrition while still within the mothers body. This is known as intrauterine cannibalism, the eggs of fish and amphibians are jellylike. Cartilagenous fish eggs are fertilized internally and exhibit a variety of both internal and external embryonic development. Most fish species spawn eggs that are fertilized externally, typically with the male inseminating the eggs after the female lays them and these eggs do not have a shell and would dry out in the air
4.
Larva
–
A larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a phase of their life cycle. The larvas appearance is very different from the adult form. A larva often has unique structures and organs that do not occur in the adult form and their diet may also be considerably different. Larvae are frequently adapted to separate from adults. For example, some such as tadpoles live almost exclusively in aquatic environments. By living in an environment, larvae may be given shelter from predators. Animals in the stage will consume food to fuel their transition into the adult form. In some species like barnacles, adults are immobile but their larvae are mobile, some larvae are dependent on adults to feed them. In many eusocial Hymenoptera species, the larvae are fed by female workers, in Ropalidia marginata the males are also capable of feeding larvae but they are much less efficient, spending more time and getting less food to the larvae. The larvae of species can become pubescent and do not develop further into the adult form. This is a type of neoteny and it is a misunderstanding that the larval form always reflects the groups evolutionary history. This could be the case, but often the stage has evolved secondarily. In these cases the form may differ more than the adult form from the groups common origin. Within Insects, only Endopterygotes show different types of larvae, several classifications have been suggested by many entomologists, and following classification is based on Antonio Berlese classification in 1913. There are four types of endopterygote larvae types, Apodous larvae - no legs at all and are poorly sclerotized. Based on sclerotization, three forms are recognized. Eucephalous - with well sclerotized head capsule, found in Nematocera, Buprestidae and Cerambycidae families
5.
Pupa
–
A pupa is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation. The pupal stage is only in holometabolous insects, those that undergo a complete metamorphosis, going through four life stages, embryo, larva, pupa. The pupae of different groups of insects have different names such as chrysalis for the pupae of butterflies, pupae may further be enclosed in other structures such as cocoons, nests or shells. In the life of an insect the pupal stage follows the larval stage and it is during the time of pupation that the adult structures of the insect are formed while the larval structures are broken down. The adult structures, imaginal discs, then grow to become the adult structures, pupae are inactive, and usually sessile. However, the pupae may be exarate or obtect and they have a hard protective coating and often use camouflage to evade potential predators. Pupation may last weeks, months or even years, for example, it is two weeks in monarch butterflies. The pupa may enter dormancy or diapause until the season for the adult insect. In temperate climates pupae usually stay dormant during winter, while in the tropics pupae usually do so during the dry season, anise swallowtails sometimes emerge after years as a chrysalis. Insects emerge from pupae by splitting the pupal case, and the process of pupation is controlled by the insects hormones. Most butterflies emerge in the morning, in mosquitoes the emergence is in the evening or night. In fleas the process is triggered by vibrations that indicate the presence of a suitable host. Prior to emergence, the adult inside the exoskeleton is termed pharate. Once the pharate adult has eclosed from the pupa, the empty pupal exoskeleton is called an exuvia, in most hymenopterans the exuvia is so thin, pupae are usually immobile and are largely defenseless. To overcome this, a feature is concealed placement. There are some species of Lycaenid butterflies who are protected in their pupal stage by ants, another means of defense by pupae of other species is the capability of making sounds or vibrations to scare potential predators. A few species use chemical defenses including toxic secretions, the pupae of social hymenopterans are protected by adult members of the hive. Examples are pupae of the orders Neuroptera, Mecoptera, Trichoptera, adecticous pupa - pupae without articulated mandibles
6.
Honey bee
–
A honey bee is any bee member of the genus Apis, primarily distinguished by the production and storage of honey and the construction of perennial, colonial nests from wax. Currently, only seven species of bee are recognized, with a total of 44 subspecies, though historically. The best known honey bee is the Western honey bee which has been domesticated for honey production, Honey bees represent only a small fraction of the roughly 20,000 known species of bees. Some other types of related bees produce and store honey, including the stingless honey bees, the study of bees including honey bees is known as melittology. The genus name Apis is Latin for bee, nonetheless, compounds gradually solidify in the orthography of natural languages in ways that do not always comply with prescription. Honey bees appear to have their center of origin in South and Southeast Asia, notably, living representatives of the earliest lineages to diverge have their center of origin there. The first Apis bees appear in the record at the Eocene–Oligocene boundary. The origin of these prehistoric honey bees does not necessarily indicate Europe as the place of origin of the genus, few fossil deposits are known from South Asia, the suspected region of honey bee origin, and fewer still have been thoroughly studied. No Apis species existed in the New World during human times before the introduction of A. mellifera by Europeans, only one fossil species is documented from the New World, Apis nearctica, known from a single 14-million-year-old specimen from Nevada. The close relatives of modern honey bees – e. g. bumblebees and stingless bees – are also social to some degree, most species have historically been cultured or at least exploited for honey and beeswax by humans indigenous to their native ranges. Only two of these species have been domesticated, one at least since the time of the building of the Egyptian pyramids. Honey bees are the extant members of the tribe Apini. Todays honey bees constitute three clades, the chromosome counts of female bees for the three clades are, Micrapis 2N =16, Megapis 2N =16, and Apis 2N =32. Drones of all species have 1N chromosome counts, the genome of Apis has been mapped. Drones are produced from unfertilized eggs, so represent only the DNA of the queen that laid the eggs, workers and queens result from fertilized eggs, so have both a mother and a father. Arrhenotokous parthenogenesis, a form of parthenogenesis, controls sex differentiation. The sex allele is polymorphic, and so long as two different variants are present, a female bee results, if both sex alleles are identical, diploid drones are produced. Honey bees detect and destroy diploid drones after the eggs hatch, queens typically mate with multiple drones on more than one mating flight
7.
Beehive
–
A beehive is an enclosed structure in which some honey bee species of the subgenus Apis live and raise their young. Though the word beehive is commonly used to describe the nest of any bee colony, scientific, nest is used to discuss colonies which house themselves in natural or artificial cavities or are hanging and exposed. Hive is used to structures used by humans to house a honey bee nest. Several species of Apis live in colonies, but only the honey bee. A bees nest is comparable to a birds nest built with a purpose to protect the dweller, the beehives internal structure is a densely packed group of hexagonal prismatic cells made of beeswax, called a honeycomb. The bees use the cells to store food and to house the brood, Beehives serve several purposes, production of honey, pollination of nearby crops, housing supply bees for apitherapy treatment, and to try to mitigate the effects of colony collapse disorder. In America, hives are commonly transported so that bees can pollinate crops in other areas, a number of patents have been issued for beehive designs. Honey bees use caves, rock cavities and hollow trees as nesting sites. In warmer climates they may occasionally build exposed hanging nests as pictured, members of other subgenera have exposed aerial combs. The nest is composed of multiple honeycombs, parallel to each other and it usually has a single entrance. Western honey bees prefer nest cavities approximately 45 litres in volume, bees usually occupy nests for several years. The bees often smooth the bark surrounding the nest entrance, honeycombs are attached to the walls along the cavity tops and sides, but small passageways are left along the comb edges. The peanut-shaped queen cells are built at the lower edge of the comb. Bees were kept in hives in Egypt in antiquity. The walls of the Egyptian sun temple of Nyuserre Ini from the 5th Dynasty, dated earlier than 2422 BC, inscriptions detailing the production of honey are found on the tomb of Pabasa from the 26th Dynasty, and describe honey stored in jars, and cylindrical hives. The archaeologist Amihai Mazar cites 30 intact hives that were discovered in the ruins of the city of Rehov and this is evidence that an advanced honey industry existed in Israel, approximately 4,000 years ago. The beehives, made of straw and unbaked clay, were found in rows, with a total of 150 hives. Ezra Marcus from the University of Haifa said the discovery provided a glimpse of ancient beekeeping seen in texts, an altar decorated with fertility figurines was found alongside the hives and may indicate religious practices associated with beekeeping
8.
Langstroth hive
–
In modern beekeeping, a Langstroth hive is any vertically modular bee hive that accepts frames that are locally referred to as Langstroth frames. The actual dimensions of so-called Langstroth frames differ by region or manufacturer and these modern Langstroth hives have little in common with Rev. L. L. Langstroths bee hive that was originally patented in 1852 and manufactured until approximately 1920. Historically, a Langstroth hive is the hive that was designed by Rev. L. L. Langstroth in 1852. L. L. Langstroths famous book on beekeeping went through several editions until about 1900, the original Langstroth frame dimensions are no longer in use. Similar designs is the standard used in many parts of the world for beekeeping. The advantage of this hive is that the bees build honeycomb into frames, the frames are designed to prevent bees from attaching honeycombs where they would either connect adjacent frames, or connect frames to the walls of the hive. The movable frames allow the beekeeper to manage the bees in a way which was formerly impossible, in contrast to August von Berlepschs frame-movable side-opened hive, Langstroths hive was top-opened, as was the Bevan top-bar hive. These combined adaptations led to the Langstroth hive design being preferred by beekeepers over all others and this measurement is called bee space. This attachment of comb to the wall was a difficulty with frameless designs. US Patent 9300 was issued to Langstroth on October 25,1852, however Langstroth was in contact with Dzierzon who used successfully the 5⁄16 inch groove to move bars in his hives much earlier. The presently so-called bee space had been incorporated by Berlepsch following Dzierzon’s discoveries, from the years 1835-1848, Langstroth made many other discoveries in beekeeping and contributed greatly to the industrialization of modern beekeeping. In this book, Langstroth described the proper dimensions and use of the beehive as we know it today. Prior to discovery of the dimensions of bee space, bees were mostly hived in skeps or gums, dr. Jan Dzierżon, a Polish apiarist and Roman Catholic priest, had in the year 1835 determined the correct spacing for the top-bars in beehives. The distance between combs had been described as 1 1⁄2 inches from the center of one top-bar to the center of the next one, in this case, the distance between combs is 1⁄2 inch, that is, twice the minimum bee space of 1⁄4 inch. This setup had been established for the chamber, as for honey storage the comb distance can be different. Later, in 1848, Dzierżon introduced grooves into his hives side walls, the grooves were 8 ×8 mm — a dimension intermediate between 1/4 and 3/8 inch, the lower and upper limits of bee space as understood now. 3/8 inch is the usual size meant when bee space is referred to, in Europe, both Dzierżon and fellow apiarist Baron August von Berlepsch had been focused on side-opened hives. Land resources for beekeeping was limited, and traditionally multiple bee hives had been kept in a single beehouse, the so-called bee space had been incorporated by Berlepsch into his frame arrangement following Dzierżons discovery that grooves added to inner walls remained free of propolis
9.
Brood comb
–
The brood comb is the beeswax structure of cells where the queen bee lays eggs. It is the part of the beehive where a new brood is raised by the colony, during the summer a good queen may lay 1500-2000 eggs per day, which results in 1500-2000 bees hatching after the three-week development period. The brood comb is usually found in the part of the beehive. When a queen does not have enough brood comb to lay eggs, usually due to congestion from pollen or honey, the hexagonal cells for the brood comb vary in diameter. The size ranges between less than 4.6 millimetres to greater than 6 millimetres, drone bees require the largest cell size. There is some evidence suggests that a smaller cell enables faster development time from egg to a fully developed, adult bee Honeycomb. The vertex where three cells meet one one side is in the center of a cell on the other side, freshly created beeswax comb may appear white at first. After the first generation of bees hatch from the brood comb it becomes yellow, brood comb that is used for subsequent generations of bee brood becomes darker and darker until it almost appears black. The cocoon sticks to the walls of the cell and is not removed. The change in color is due to the cocoon that remains inside the cell and also small soil. Queen bees are not raised in the brood comb but require a special queen cell
