In the old colony, the daughter queens often start "piping", just prior to emerging as adults, and, when the daughter queens eventually emerge, they fight each other until only one remains the survivor then becomes the new queen. Just as the pupal stages of these "daughter queens" are nearly complete, the old queen and approximately two-thirds of the adult workers leave the colony in a swarm, traveling some distance to find a new location suitable for building a hive (e.g., a hollow tree trunk). In response to these favorable conditions, the hive creates one to two dozen new queens. In most climates, western honey bees swarm in the spring and early summer, when there is an abundance of blooming flowers from which to collect nectar and pollen. Western honey bee colonies reproduce through a process called " swarming". This means that reproduction of the colony, rather than individual bees, is the biologically significant unit. Because of this high degree of sociality and permanence, western honey bee colonies can be considered superorganisms. Unlike most other bee species, western honey bees have perennial colonies which persist year after year. Bees are unaggressive in this state, since they have no hive to protect. Humans are responsible for its considerable additional range, introducing European subspecies into North America (early 1600s), South America, Australia, New Zealand, and eastern Asia. The species is believed to have originated in Africa or Asia, and it spread naturally through Africa, the Middle East and Europe. The western honey bee can be found on every continent except Antarctica. Western honey bees are an important model organism in scientific studies, particularly in the fields of social evolution, learning, and memory they are also used in studies of pesticide toxicity, especially via pollen, to assess non-target impacts of commercial pesticides. Further research is required to enable differentiation between wild and non-wild colonies in order to determine the conservation status of the species in the wild, meaning self sustaining, without treatments or management. Numerous studies indicate that the species has undergone significant declines in Europe however, it is not clear if they refer to population reduction of wild or managed colonies. There are indications that the species is rare, if not extinct in the wild in Europe and as of 2014, the western honey bee was assessed as "Data Deficient" on the IUCN Red List. Western honey bees are threatened by pests and diseases, especially the Varroa mite and colony collapse disorder. With human assistance, the western honey bee now occupies every continent except Antarctica. The western honey bee was one of the first domesticated insects, and it is the primary species maintained by beekeepers to this day for both its honey production and pollination activities. Colony activities are organized by complex communication between individuals, through both pheromones and the dance language. Individual colonies can house tens of thousands of bees. Like all honey bee species, the western honey bee is eusocial, creating colonies with a single fertile female (or " queen"), many normally non-reproductive females or "workers", and a small proportion of fertile males or " drones". The genus name Apis is Latin for "bee", and mellifera is the Latin for "honey-bearing" or "honey carrying", referring to the species' production of honey. The western honey bee or European honey bee ( Apis mellifera) is the most common of the 7–12 species of honey bees worldwide. Apis mellifica mellifica silvarum Goetze, 1964 (Unav.).
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