Biological characteristics of honeybee

The biological characteristics of honeybees include: the development characteristics of honeybees, the information exchange characteristics of honeybees, the living environment of honeybees and so on. 1. The developmental characteristics of honeybees: honeybees are completely abnormal insects, and the three types of bees all go through four developmental stages: egg, larva, pupa and adult. 1. The process of development: the four stages of honeybees are all different in morphology, they are: (1) eggs. Banana-shaped, milky white, the egg membrane is slightly transparent, the thinner end is the ventral end and the thicker end is the head. For the eggs laid by the queen bee, the thinner end is the bottom of the nest, and the thicker end faces the mouth of the nest. The embryo in the egg develops and hatches larvae after 3 days. (2) larvae. White wormlike. At first, it was C-shaped, but as the worm grew up, the worm straightened with its head facing the nest. It is fed by worker bees during the larval stage. The female larvae hatched by fertilized eggs develop into worker bees if they are fed with larval jelly with honey and pollen in the royal jelly in the first three days. The same female larvae will develop into queens if they are continuously fed with a large amount of royal jelly during the larval stage. The worker bee larvae grew to the end of the 6th, and the mouth of the nest room was sealed with a wax cover. The larvae in the nest room are covered with silk to make cocoons and then pupate. The capped larvae and pupae are collectively called the lid, and the nest spleen with most of the lid is called the lid spleen (pupa spleen). The seal of worker bee pupa is slightly protruding, and the spleen of the whole seal looks smooth. The cover of male bee pupa is protruding, and the nest is larger, so it is easy to distinguish between the two. Worker bee larvae pupate at the end of 2 days after capping. (3) pupa. The pupa stage is mainly to transform and differentiate the internal organs to form various organs of adult bees. Gradually showing the head, chest, abdominal three parts, appendages are also exposed, the color gradually darkened from milky white. The mature pupa takes off the pupa shell, bites through the nest cover, and feathers into adult bees. (4) adult bees. The exoskeleton of the honeybee just out of the house is soft, the fluff on the body surface is very soft, and the body color is lighter. Soon the bones hardened, the wings straightened, and the various organs in the body gradually matured. 2. The development period of type III bees: honeybees require certain living conditions during the embryonic development period, such as suitable nests, suitable temperature (32-35 ℃), suitable humidity (75%-90%), regular feeding, adequate feed, etc. Under normal circumstances, the development period from egg to adult of the same species of honeybee is roughly the same. If the nest temperature is too high (more than 36.5 ℃), the development period will be shortened, even stunted, wings curled, or die midway; if the nest temperature is too low (below 32 ℃), the development period will be delayed, or frostbite. The development period of Chinese honeybee (Apis cerana) is slightly shorter, the development period of Chinese bee worker bee is about 20 days, and that of Italian bee worker bee is 21 days. By grasping the development date and knowing the ratio of uncovered spleen (egg spleen) to capped spleen (egg, worm and pupa is 1: 2: 4), we can know whether the development of the colony is normal. If we know the development date of queen bee and drones, we can arrange the work schedule of artificial breeding queen bee. 2 Information exchange characteristics of honeybees ━━ honeybee pheromones: honeybees have formed an information exchange system that can adapt to survival and solve problems in social life. The whole colony can carry out activities in an orderly and coordinated manner in order to survive and develop. This paper mainly introduces the pheromone of honeybee. Bees live in dark hives for a long time. In addition to relying on contact, sound and dance for communication, a lot of information is transmitted through chemicals. Pheromones are chemicals secreted by the exocrine glands of insects in vitro, which act on other individuals of the same species through contact between individuals or air transmission, leading to three specific behavioral or physiological reactions, so they are also called external hormones. The pheromone transmitted between individuals of the same kind is a special "language" to them, and the receiving individual can understand the information code contained in it, thus producing behavioral or physiological responses beneficial to the group. (1) Queen pheromone: when there is a spawning queen in the colony, the activities inside and outside the hive are in good order. once the queen is lost, the collection activities of worker bees drop sharply, and many worker bees crawl inside and outside the nest. This shows that worker bees are aware of the existence of queen bees through some information. ① queen mandibular gland pheromone: the main function of queen bee maxillary gland pheromone is: highly attractive to worker bees; can inhibit worker bee ovarian development and prevent the construction of royal platform; released in the air, can induce drones to estrus. Guard bees use mouthparts or antennae to obtain the pheromones of the maxillary gland from the queen bee, and then they act as messengers to pass the pheromones to other worker bees through feed. ② queen bee backplane gland pheromone: unique to queen bee, worker bee does not. The main function is to make worker bees recognize its signals, while also inhibiting the construction of Wangtai and preventing the development of worker bees' ovaries. The queen bee is within 30 centimeters of the drones in the air, and the dorsal gland pheromone is highly attractive to the drones and can stimulate the mating activities of the drones. ③ tarsal gland pheromone: the tarsal gland secretions of queen bee and worker bees are also called footprint pheromones. It can restrain the strong group to build the king platform. ④ Koch gland pheromone: highly attractive to worker bees. ⑤ rectal pheromone: 1 at the age of 14 days, the Queen's feces contain o-aminoacetophenone, which has a repellent effect on bees. (2) worker bee pheromone ① worker bee maxillary gland pheromone: when foreign worker bees (robbers) invade or foreign queen bees enter the hive, bees often bite the invaders and mark 2-heptanone on the "enemy" to guide other bees to attack. The local worker bees that receive this pheromone often secrete 2-heptanone, increasing its concentration and attracting more aggressive worker bees. ② alarm pheromone: the main component of the alarm pheromone secreted by the Koch gland of the worker bee is isoamyl acetate, which stings on the "enemy" when stinging, which can attract more bee stings. Its activity is 20 times higher than that of 2-heptanone. ③ 's gland pheromone: the main components are aromatic oxygen-containing terpenes. It is a navigation signal that guides bees to the nest gate population and guides bees to fly to the feed source. It can adjust the movement of the colony, make the colony without queen bee move to the colony with queen bee, guide the scattered bees to find the queen bee, and stabilize the colony together with the pheromone of the queen's maxillary gland. ④ worker bee tarsal gland pheromone: worker bees apply tarsal gland pheromones at the door of the nest to guide the bees to the nest door. Worker bees also seem to mark nodal pheromones at collection sites to enhance their attractiveness to other gathering bees. ⑤ beeswax pheromone: the newly built nest and spleen has a special fragrance, mainly composed of volatile aldehydes and alcohols. It can stimulate the collection and storage behavior of bees. (3) drone pheromone: drones pheromone is also produced by the maxillary gland. When sexually mature drones fly in marriage, they fly in groups over selected locations, releasing pheromones and luring the queen to fly in. (4) Bee pheromone: the main function is to inhibit the development of worker bee ovary, make worker bee "smell" the existence of larva, and make it easy for worker bee to distinguish drone larva from worker bee larva. Pheromones of mature larvae prompt worker bees to seal their nests with wax caps to facilitate pupation. It can also stimulate bees to collect and activate the tongue glands of worker bees. A deep understanding of honeybee pheromones can help us understand many complex behaviors of honeybees in order to make full use of these pheromones in production. Third, the living environment characteristics of honeybees the external environment has a lot of great influence on the life of honeybees. It is mainly affected by temperature, humidity, light, and other climatic factors. 1. Temperature: honeybees belong to variable temperature animals, but the colonies made up of thousands of bees have the unique ability to regulate body temperature of constant temperature animals. The more the number of honeybees, the more stable the temperature in the hive, and can keep the optimum temperature in the range of 34 ℃ ~ 35 ℃. The temperature is too high or too low is not conducive to its development and reproduction. For example, at 27 ℃, the lid could be feathered into adults, but it had no collecting power; at 30 ℃, the Eclosion was delayed by 4 days; at 37 ℃, the Eclosion period was shortened by 3 days, but a large number of caps died (see seeds but no bees). The optimum temperature for honeybees' life was 15 ℃ ~ 25 ℃. Bees can leave the nest when the temperature is between 5 ℃ and 35 ℃ (the temperature in the shade during the day). When the temperature is below 10 ℃ for a long time, the queen stops laying eggs, and the bees reduce or stop their activities out of the hive, form a colony in the hive and move into the overwintering period. In the temperate zone, the queen bee stops laying eggs in winter, only the old bees gradually die, there is no new emergence, and the number of bees in the colony gradually decreases; in summer, the queen bee often lays more than 1500 eggs a day, and the number of new bees greatly exceeds the death number of old bees, the number of bees gradually increases, and the colony develops to a peak. The temperature varies greatly throughout the year, and bees adjust the temperature in the box in various ways in order to survive. In the hot summer, when the temperature in the hive exceeds the suitable temperature range, the bees go out to collect water and evaporate water (fan wind) to cool down. When the hive is exposed to the hot sun and the radiation heat is too high, the bees leave the spleen and gather to the larger space in the nest and accumulate to the nest door to give off heat. This phenomenon is called "leaving the spleen" in production. On the contrary, when it is cold, the bees leave the edge of the spleen and gather on the spleen in the middle of the hive to protect the baby, which is called shrinking in production. In the cold winter, bees swarm through the winter. The suitable temperature is 6 ℃ ~ 10 ℃ in the periphery and 24 ℃ ~ 30 ℃ in the center of the colony. If the temperature is not kept properly, the temperature will be adjusted by eating honey, breaking up the group and other behaviors. Due to the enhancement of metabolism, not only the life span of bees is affected, but also the feed consumption is increased. 2. Humidity: the relative humidity of the air in the hive is related to the temperature and humidity of the external air, the temperature of feeding in the hive, the physiological status of bees and the number of developing individuals. The relative humidity in the center of the normal hive is 77%-84%, and the humidity in various parts of the hive varies between 25%-100%. During the honey flow period, the humidity in the center of the hive is 55% 60%; if there is no honey in nature, the relative humidity between the spleen and the spleen is 76% 91%, because the spleen needs higher humidity, and the excess moisture collected from the nectar by evaporation during honey making needs to be reduced. The most suitable relative humidity during the overwintering period is 75%-80%. If the nest is dry, the water in the bee body and in the nest honey evaporates quickly, and the bees will feel thirsty and noisy, resulting in overwintering failure. In addition to using metabolic water, honeybees use water collection and spray droplets to evaporate water to increase the humidity in the nest and fan to reduce the humidity in the nest. 3. The influence of light: sunshine can stimulate bees to go out, the collecting season is the long sunshine season of one year, the hive should be placed in the shade, the hive door faces south, the bees also tend to light at night, and the night should be in a dark environment. 4. Other climatic factors: honeybee life requires fresh air. When the air is not ventilated, the swarm bees are easy to be restless, especially in muggy situations. Showers or sudden exposure also have a great impact on the safety of bees. In areas where the seaside is often windy, bee gathering activities are forced to fly close to the ground, so when choosing a site, attention must be paid to the wind force, the frequency of the wind direction and the natural or man-made barriers in the area.