Apis cerana

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eastern honey bee

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hymenoptera
Suborder: Apocrita
Family: Apidae
Subfamily: Apinae
Genus: Apis
Subgenus: (Apis)
Species: A. cerana
Binomial name
Apis cerana
Fabricius, 1793

Apis cerana, or the Asiatic honey bee (or the Eastern honey bee), is a small honey bee found in southern and southeastern Asia, including all the countries of the Himalayan region (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan) as well as Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Thailand, Vietnam, and probably other countries. This species is also known as the Himalayan hive honeybee[1]. This species is a sister species of Apis koschevnikovi, and both are in the same subgenus as the Western (European) honeybee, Apis mellifera.

Apis cerana is still found in the wild, where it nests in tree holes, fallen logs, and crevices, but it is also one of the few bee species that can be domesticated. Like the Western honey bee, Apis cerana is kept by farmers for honey production and pollination. Traditionally the bees were kept in log hives, now being replace by wooden boxes with fixed frames. The Apis cerana bee size is similar or somewhat smaller than Apis mellifera, and they also have a more prominent abdominal stripes. Their honey yield is smaller, because they form smaller colonies and partly because they have yet to benefit from the in most areas the selective breeding programs that have produced modern day Apis mellifera. In folk medicine, their beeswax is used to treat and heal wounds.

Apis cerana is found at altitudes from sea level up to 3,500 metres in areas with appropriate flora and climate. This bee species has adapted to adverse climatic conditions and can survive extreme fluctuations in temperature and long periods of rainfall. It is unique in its ability to survive temperatures as low as -0.1ºC, a temperature lethal for other bee species (Apis mellifera).

Farmers in the Himalayan region benefit directly from honey and other bee products from Apis cerana, which are a source of income, nutrition, and medicine. The bees are also important pollinators, ensuring the pollination of mountain crops, especially early flowering fruit and vegetables. It is available when temperatures are still too low for the exotic Apis mellifera species, and still flies under cool and cloudy conditions. As with other wild bees, Apis cerana also plays an important role in combating soil degradation by pollinating wild plants and ensuring that more biomass is available to be returned to the soil.

Beekeeping with Apis cerana has become an important source of income for mountain farmers, especially the poor and marginalised, as it is easy to practise. There is no capital outlay as the bees do not need to be fed, fumigated, or migrated to warmer areas in winter, and are mostly kept in traditional log hives[2]. They also produce high-quality honey and their wax is organic and natural.

Honey production is lower than for Apis mellifera, but is being increased through a focused queen breeding and selection programme.

The total number of Apis cerana colonies kept by farmers is unknown, but reports indicate an estimated 120,000 colonies in Nepal, and 1.5 million in the Himalayan region of China, about 780,000 of them in Yunnan province[3][4].

Apis cerana is a natural host to the mite Varroa destructor and the parasite Nosema ceranae, both serious pests of the Western honey bee[5]. Having coevolved with these parasites, A. cerana exhibits more careful grooming than A. mellifera, and 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.

Workers do not re-use old wax as often as in other bee species and therefore their brood capping looks much lighter than those of Apis mellifera; they usually tear down old combs and build new wax constantly.

  • Thermal defense: When an Apis 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). European honey bees (A. mellifera) lack this behavior.
Differences in the wing structure : left Apis mellifera, right Apis cerana
Differences in the wing structure :
left Apis mellifera, right Apis cerana

Contents

[edit] Subspecies

Apis cerana indica in Cebu - Philippines
Apis cerana indica in Cebu - Philippines

(following Engel, 1999).

[edit] Sources

Apis cerana from India
Apis cerana from India
  1. BIODIVERSITY OF HONEYBEES, M.R.Srinivasan, Department of Agricultural Entomology - Tamil Nadu Agricultural University accessed Oct 2005
  2. Engel, M.S. (1999) The taxonomy of recent and fossil honey bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Apis). Journal of Hymenoptera Research 8: 165-196.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Ahmad, Farooq; Joshi, Surendra Raj & Gurung, Min Bahadur (2003), The Himalayan Cliff Bee Apis laboriosa and the Honey Hunters of Kaski: Indigenous Honeybees of the Himalayas, Vol. 1, Kathmandu: ICIMOD, pp. 52, ISBN 92-9115-684-1, <http://books.icimod.org/index.php/search/publication/124>. Retrieved on 26 October 2007 
  2. ^ Ahmad, Farooq; Joshi, Surendra Raj & Gurung, Min Bahadur (2007), Beekeeping and Rural Development, Kathmandu: ICIMOD, ISBN 978 92 9115 048 9, <http://books.icimod.org/index.php/search/publication/301>. Retrieved on 26 October 2007 
  3. ^ Ken, Tan; Xuan, Zhang ; ShaoYu, He; DanYin, Zhou (2005). "Morphology and biogeography of Apis cerana (Fabr.) in China". Journal of Yunnan Agricultural University 20: 410-414. 
  4. ^ Ken, Tan; Fuchs, Stefan; Koeniger, Nikolaus; Ruiguang, Zan (2003). "Morphological Characterization of Apis Cerana in the Yunnan Province of China". Apidologie 34: 553–561. doi:10.1051/Apido:2003049. 
  5. ^ Ritter, Wolfgang. Asian Nosema Disease Vector Confirmed – is this a new infestation or only now discovered?. Retrieved on 2007-11-30.

[edit] External links