Apis Dorsata Binghami

Apis Dorsata Binghami. Key words Apis dorsata binghami giant honey bees nesting tree nest South Sulawesi Introduction The giant honey bee (Apis dorsata) is one of five species found in Indonesia Those species are A andreniformis A dorsata A cerana A koschevnikovi and A nigrocincta (Engel 2012).

(Apis dorsata binghami) North Pamona subdistrict is one of the largest honey producing areas in Sulawesi Collection from Apis dorsata binghami is from nests hanging under branches of big trees which are mostly located in primary forest away from villages The height of the nest is 1020 m above the ground Although nobody owns the tree where the bees nest and therefore anyone could.

giant honey bee Apis dorsata University of Florida

Apis dorsata binghami Toolbox Datasheet Apis dorsata binghami Index Identity Taxonomic Tree List of Diseases and Disorders.

The distribution and nestsite preference of Apis dorsata

Making a Nest Apis Dorsata Experimental Design Binghami Extract This study employs a A dorsata Binghami nest descriptive approach The research was freshly brushed and stored at was carried out in a test of seven room temperature for three days male and female volunteers with the before being cooked in an oven at 80 age criteria of 40 years to the ° C for 45 minutes and finely mixed.

Sulawesi Giant Honey Bee Subspecies Apis Dorsata Binghami Inaturalist Ca

IntroductionDistributionDescriptionLife CycleBiologyEconomic ImpactManagementSelected ReferencesThe giant honey bee Apis dorsata Fabricius (Figure 1) has a widespread distribution throughout southern Asia and is not found in North America Three subspecies of Apis dorsata are recognized Apis dorsta dorsata Apis dorsta binghami and Apis dorsta breviligula This species has a different nest design from that of the western honey bee Apis melliferaL in that these honey bees build a single large exposed comb under tree branches or under cliffs rather than in cavities Apis dorsata has developed an effective colony defense system to protect their exposed combs Professional honey hunters harvest honey seasonally from Apis dorsatacolonies in spite of the colony’s effective defensiveness and hardtoreach location high in trees or on cliffs The nine honey bee species within the genus Apis share many similar morphological behavioral and physiological traits Here we highlight some of the unique characteristics of Apis dorsataand provide some comparisons to those of other h Apis dorsata is found throughout the southern countries of Asia including Malaysia Indonesia and the Philippines (Figure 2) The greatest number of Apis dorsata colonies are found in dense forest areas or on cliffs but nests are occasionally found in urban areas on building ledges (Figure 3) Honey bees are eusocial insects and therefore have overlapping generations cooperative brood care and reproductive castes (Mortensen et al 2015) Each Apis dorsata colony typically contains one queen several drones and thousands of worker bees Apis dorsata looks very similar to Apis mellifera but is larger in size Apis dorsata workers can be up to 3 cm (12 in) in length which is almost twice the length of an Apis mellifera worker thus they are known as the giant honey bees In most honey bee species the reproductive bees (queens and drones) are larger than the workers however there is very little difference in body size between the reproductive bees and workers in Apis dorsata The queen lays all of the eggs for the colony and is usually the mother of all of the workers and drones within the colony She is the sole reproductive female in the colony and has a larger abdomen as her reproductive organs are more developed (Figure 4) Queens are usually darker than workers The life cycle and life stages of Apis dorsata are the same as those in all other honey bee species (see and the life cycles of Apis mellifera and Apis cerana) Honey bees are holometabolous insects which means they undergo four separate life stages (egg larva pupa and adult) Egg A queen will lay one egg in an individual wax cell at a time Eggs are small white and oval they look similar to a grain of rice After three days a larva will hatch from the egg Larva The larvae are small white and maggotlike They remain in their individual cells They are fed a steady diet of a proteinbased liquid produced by younger adult workers For six days the larvae will eat until their body weight attains that of a fully developed adult They are usually found lying in the bottom of a wax cell in the shape of a letter C Pupa Once the larvae are ready to pupate the workers cover the cell with a wax capping The pupa will remain undisturbed for 12 days Adult After completing th Apis dorsata builds open nests that hang from under thick tree branches or under cliffs (Figure 6) They build a single large comb up to 150 cm in length and 70 cm tall The comb is permanently covered by a curtain of up to 100000 worker bees (Figure 7) This curtain is several layers of bees thick and forms a protective barrier separating the vulnerable brood from the environment This curtain is sufficient to protect the nest during storms with heavy wind and rain The large body size of Apis dorsata allows these bees to have a greater flight and foraging range than those of other honey bee species Apis dorsatacolonies can perform seasonal longdistance migrations in order to exploit the nectar and pollen resources available at different times throughout many parts of southern Asia (Oldroyd et al 2000) The colony leaves behind an empty comb when it departs from a nest site Interestingly the same colony has been observed to return to the exact same branch six months later ev Apis dorsata is considered to be extremely important to both honey gatherers/hunters and agricultural producers in southern Asia Unlike Apis mellifera and Apis cerana Apis dorsatacolonies cannot be transported for pollination purposes therefore locals are mainly interested in harvesting honey from colonies There is much to gain for locals willing to risk harvesting honey from these colonies because Apis dorsatacolonies are so large and such efficient honey producers Some of the larger colonies can contain up to 15 kg (33 lbs) of honey In addition to honey the wax and bee brood are also sold at a significant price Although the bees are not managed for pollination many crops throughout southern Asia depend upon Apis dorsata Some of the major crops thought to be heavily dependent upon Apis dorsata pollination include cotton mango coconut coffee pepper star fruit and macadamia Currently there are no reliable estimates on the actual economic contribution of Apis dors Apis dorsata is not managed like other honey bee species because they are an opennesting species Attempts to place Apis dorsata colonies in wooden Langstroth hives traditionally used for Apis mellifera and Apis cerana have all failed (Koeniger et al 2010) as these bees have not evolved to live in dark cavities Instead of beekeeping to obtain honey wax and brood honey gathering from feral Apis dorsatacolonies is the common practice in many regions of the bee’s distribution For centuries people throughout southern Asia have gone through great risk to harvest honey from Apis dorsata colonies Aggregations of Apis dorsata colonies are usually on the tallest trees or cliffs thus presenting a major challenge to access Furthermore the natural distribution of these bees overlaps with that of tigers which have been known to kill honey hunters Traditional honey gathering is usually done on a moonless night to minimize the number of flying bees once the colony is disturbed Eithe Batra SWT 1997 Fruitpollinating bees of the Garhwal Himalaya UP India Acta Horticulture 437 325328Cao LF Zheng HQ Hu CY He SY Kuang HO Hu FL 2012 Phylogeography of Apis dorsata(Hymenoptera Apidea) from China and neighboring Asian areas Annals of the Entomological Society of America 105DeBerry S Crowly J Ellis JD 2012 Swarm control for managed beehives IFAS Extension Entomology and Nematology ENY160 (8 December 2015)Ellis JD Ellis A 2009 African honey bee Africanized honey bee killer bee Apis mellifera scutellata Lepeletier (Insecta Hymenoptera Apidae) IFAS Extension Entomology and Nematology EENY 4.