Usuário(a):SA RS BRASIL/Teste1

Em tradução - NÂO APAGAR -

Comportamento de Acasalamento

Within the honey bee colony, a queen bee typically mates with 10 or more males. This extensive mating is performed in an effort to secure a great range of genetic variation in her colony to cope with diseases, as well as respond to nectar sources and a wide range of external stimuli. Apart from the queen bee, the only other sexual members of the society are the male drones, whose only function is to simply mate with the queen, after which they will die.

The exact time and place of Apis cerana mating is specific to the subspecies, often varying by local environment. For instance, in Sri Lanka, Apis cerana males typically aggregate beside a tree canopy as opposed to above a tree as is found in the Apis cerana subspecies of Japan. The most significant factor in determining mating time, however, is not ecological conditions, but rather the presence of drones of other species. Mating time decreases as the number of external species present increases.

A enxameação reprodutiva

In A. cerana, reproductive swarming is similar to A. mellifera. A. cerana reproductive swarms settle 20–30 m away from the natal nest (the mother or primary colony) and stay for a few days before departing for a new nest site after getting information from scout bees. Scout bees search for suitable cavities in which to construct the swarm’s home. Successful scouts come back and report the location of suitable nesting sites to the other bees by performing communication dances on the surface of the swarm cluster in the same way as for food sources.

Comportamento de fuga

Apart from reproductive swarming, A. cerana has migration and absconding behavior, abandoning the current nest and building a new nest in a new location where an abundant supply of nectar and pollen is available. These bees usually do not store great amounts of honey, so they are more vulnerable to starvation if a prolonged shortage of nectar and pollen occurs. Absconding will start when not enough pollen and nectar are available. After the last brood emerges, the adult bees fill their honey stomachs from the hive's stores and swarm to establish a new nest at a new location. A. cerana has more absconding behavior than A. mellifera.

Life History

The development of worker bees in a colony is typical of that for any insect that undergoes complete metamorphosis as it includes the four stages of egg, larva, pupa, and adult. The embryo grows inside the egg for 3 days, consuming the protein-rich egg yolk. Then it undergoes an 8-day larval stage, which is an intense feeding state involving honey, pollen, and brood food supplied by the adult bees. Finally, there is construction of a wax pupa which then matures and gnaws through the wax cap of the cell to emerge as a young bee.

Seleção de Parentesco

Genetic Relatedness Within Colonies

As one queen generally mates with over a dozen males, the genetic relatedness of the colony is biased and represents haplodiploid sex determination. If the queen bee lays unfertilized eggs with no paternal genetic contribution, the eggs will develop into drones. If the queen bee lays fertilized eggs with both maternal and paternal genetic contribution, the eggs will develop into females. In this system, virgin queens sharing the same father will have a genetic relatedness of .75 and those of different fathers will have a genetic relatedness of only .25. The females workers in the colony are related to the queen’s sons by a genetic relatedness of .25. Such biasing results in the genes of some female worker bees being represented disproportionately in the virgin queens.

Worker-Queen Conflict

Conflict may arise between workers and bees as female workers attempt to increase the propagation of their genes by biasing their queen-rearing efforts in favor of virgin queens sharing the same father. Although female worker bees do possess ovaries and can essentially produce viable eggs, this potential is almost never realized as long as the colony is ruled by a dominant queen. Therefore, the probability of personal reproduction by a worker bee is exceedingly low. “Worker policing,” which is the mutual prevention of reproduction by workers, could be the reason behind the conscious non-reproduction of female worker bees. In other words, their fertility is controlled by queen signals. The queen honeybee informs workers of her presence by pheromones that she secretes from her mandibular glands. These signals are acquired by workers in close vicinity of the queen and then spread to other workers in the colony, mainly by body contacts. In presence of queen pheromone signals, the vast majority of workers refrain from activating their ovaries. Therefore, due to factors of genetic relatedness, Apis cerana often try to prevent other workers in her colony from reproducing, either by destroying worker-laid eggs, or by showing aggression towards workers attempting to lay eggs through worker policing.

Interaction with Other Species

Dieta

Abelhas operárias adultas predominantemente alimentam de pólen e néctar ou mel, embora o valor nutritivo de pólen varia de acordo com a planta. pólenes mistos possuem um alto valor nutritivo e, na verdade, fornecem todos os materiais necessários para o bom desenvolvimento dos animais jovens. However, when dried, pollen quickly loses its nutritive value.

In addition to feeding themselves, bees also feed each other through a process known as “food transmission.” Moreover, workers may also obtain food from the queen, while drones acquire food by ingesting material regurgitated by other drones. Queens themselves are fed larval food by the workers during their wintering season, thereby neither feeding on nor being fed honey.

Requisitos de Água

In addition to food requirements for diet, water also plays a key role in the growth and development of adult bees. In fact, the form of food has little to no influence on the longevity and life expectancy of the bee as long as there is still ready availability of water. This idea was further supported through experimental means concerning queen bees isolated in separate cages. Both groups were fed sugar candy as a control measure; however, the group that was fed water in addition to the sugar candy lived an average of two weeks or more compared to the other group which only survived a matter of three to four days. Moreover, the importance of water intake for an adult bee’s survival can be further understood through examination of diet and behavior during prime seasons, during which colonies of bees consume large amounts of water in order to dilute honey produced as well as to regulate temperature in the nest.

Predadores

Vespine wasps, endemic to Southeast Asia, are a major predator for Apis cerana, predominantly at their colonies throughout Southern Asia. This hawking predation is especially fierce during the autumn season when the wasps are most populous, predominantly during the morning and afternoon. This method involves the wasps taking up a position in front of the beehive, while facing outwards away from the entrance towards returning foragers. Vespine wasps attempt to attack the honey bee quarry in an effort to gain provisions to aid in the development of their own offspring.

Defesa

As the Vespine wasps approach the entrance to the honeybee nest, more guard bees are alerted, which in turn increases their probability of being killed by heat-balling bees. Heat balling is a unique defense system in which several hundred bees surround the wasp in a tight ball and vibrate their muscles in an effort to produce heat and effectively kill the wasp inside. Alternatively, however, in the presence of a wasp, the bees may also just withdraw into their nests and await the heat-balling circumstances to develop naturally. Furthermore, other bees may just decide to fly away as an evasive measure in times of conflict, often altering their specific flight styles in order to avoid predation.

Thermal defense

When an A. cerana hive is invaded by the Japanese giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia), about 500 Japanese honey bees (A. cerana japonica) surround the hornet and vibrate their flight muscles until the temperature is raised to 47 °C (117 °F), heating the hornet to death, but keeping the temperature still under their own lethal limit (48–50 °C).

Wing Shimmering

Although both Apis mellifera and Apis cerana suffer from predation from Vespine wasps, one defense mechanism unique to Apis cerana is “wing shimmering”. During this period of self-defense, bees collectively execute carefully timed waves of shimmering of their wings when approached by predators such as Vespine wasps. This appears to serve as a distraction technique of visual pattern disruption that results in confusing predators. As a result, predators are unable to continue attacking additional bees, and are therefore unsuccessful in this endeavor.

Pestes

Apis cerana is the natural host to the mite Varroa jacobsoni and the parasite Nosema ceranae, both serious pests of the western honey bee. When first discovered near Beijing, China, in 1994, it was originally thought that Nosema ceranae was restricted to Apis cerana within in the East Asian region. However, it has now been confirmed that this parasite species is actually present in colonies of Apis mellifera as well, both in Taiwan as well as Spain, though the origins of its arrival in Europe are still unknown. Bees infected with Nosema ceranae suffer reduced lifespans as well as increased mortality in the winter and poor buildup and reduced honey yield in the spring. Having coevolved with these parasites, A. cerana exhibits more careful grooming than A. mellifera, thus has an effective defense mechanism against Varroa that keeps the mite from devastating colonies. Other than defensive behaviors such as these, much of their behavior and biology (at least in the wild) is very similar to that of A. mellifera.

Banco de Dados Genético

The Biomodeling Laboratory at Seoul National University has constructed an Asian honey bee transcriptome database using a next-generation sequencing technique (Illumina hiseq2000 and GS-FLX 454 technology). This database interface will support researchers to get the molecular and sequence information about A. cerana more easily.view