Mica Mladenovic

A review of methods used in some European countries for assessing the quality of honey bee queens through their physical characters and the performance of their colonies

Summary The term “quality” in relation to queens and drones refers to certain quantitative physical and/or behavioural characters. It is generally believed that a high quality queen should have the following physical characteristics: high live weight; high number of ovarioles; large size of spermatheca; high number of spermatozoa in spermatheca; and be free from diseases and pests. It is, however, also known that the performance of a honey bee colony is the result of its queens function as well as of that of the drones that mated with her. These two approaches are often considered together and give a general picture of the queen production technique and selection. Here we describe the most common and well known anatomical, physiological, behavioural and performance characters related to the queens, as measured in different European countries: the live weight of the virgin queen (Bulgaria); the live weight of the laying queen (Bulgaria, Italy); the diameter and volume of spermatheca (Bulgaria, Greece, Slovenia); the number of ovarioles (Greece, Italy, Slovenia); the weight of ovaries (Slovenia); the number of spermatozoa in spermatheca (Italy, Poland, Slovenia); the brood pattern (Bulgaria, Greece); the egg laying ability/fecundity (Bulgaria); the brood production (Croatia, Serbia); the colony population development (Croatia, Serbia, Slovakia); the honey production (Croatia, Denmark, Serbia, Slovakia); the hygienic behaviour (Croatia, Denmark, Serbia, Slovakia); the defence behaviour (Croatia); the calmness/sitting on the comb (Croatia, Denmark); and swarming (Croatia, Denmark). The data presented fit well with the findings of the same characters in the literature, and in general they support the argument for the term “quality characters”. Especially for the weight of the queen, the number of ovarioles, the volume of the spermatheca and the number of spermatozoa, data per country proved its own accuracy by repetition through the years. We also report that when instrumentally inseminated queens are kept under mass production conditions (in small cages in queen banks and with low number of attendants) they can transfer the semen to their spermatheca and clear their oviducts more efficiently when they have been inseminated with small amounts of semen in two or three sequences (but not four), compared to those inseminated with the same amount of semen at once (Poland). Furthermore, we had an inside view of the sanitary conditions of the colony: a. through the health status of the queen (nosema plus virus analysis) (Slovenia); and b. evaluating the nosema load of worker bees (Denmark) and of the queens (Greece). This is the first step to summarize this type of diverse data for such an important issue. The knowledge acquired can be used to fill in the existing gaps in the breeding or queen evaluation systems of each country in order to facilitate standardization of methodology for comparable results.

Flower morphophysiology of selected Lamiaceae species in relation to pollinator attraction

Summary The floral biology and attractiveness of five Lamiaceae species, namely Hyssopus officinalis, Lavandula officinalis, Melissa officinalis, Salvia officinalis and Salvia sclarea, were studied by correlating morphological characteristics of flower and nectar production with pollinator visits, especially with reference to honey bee forage preferences. Although these species are cultivated for medicinal purposes, they also represent a significant source of pollen and nectar for honey production, so the investigation aimed to estimate their melliferousness and significance for bee pasture. Pollinator observation indicated the visitation of seven species of Hymenoptera, three species of Diptera and two species of day flying Lepidoptera. The honey bee (Apis mellifera) was the most abundant pollinator, and the major elements of attractiveness were flower scent and colour, followed by the shape and size of the corolla and to a lesser extent nectar abundance. Corolla tube length and number of open flowers per whorl were of little significance. According to all analyzed flower characteristics and observation of pollinator behaviour and visits, the most attractive plants were H. officinalis, S. officinalis and L. officinalis, whilst M. officinalis was the least attractive and S. sclarea completely unattractive to all recorded pollinators except for Xylocopa violacea.

Morphological discriMination of greek honey bee populations based on geoMetric MorphoMetrics analysis of wing shape

Abstract Honey bees collected from 32 different localities in Greece were studied based on the geometric morphometrics approach using the coordinates of 19 landmarks located at wing vein intersections. Procrustes analysis, principal component analysis, and Canonical variate analysis (CVA) detected population variability among the studied samples. According to the Principal component analysis (PCA ) of pooled data from each locality, the most differentiated populations were the populations from the Aegean island localities Astypalaia, Chios, and Kythira. However, the populations with the most distant according to the canonical variate analysis performed on all measurements were the populations from Heraklion and Chania (both from Crete island). These results can be used as a starting point for the use of geometric morphometrics in the discrimination of honey bee populations in Greece and the establishment of conservation areas for local honey bee populations.

The genetic variability of honey bees from the Southern Balkan Peninsula, based on alloenzymic data

Summary The genetic variability of honey bee populations, representing Apis mellifera macedonica, Apis mellifera cecropia and Apis mellifera carnica subspecies from the Balkan Peninsula countries of Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Montenegro, was studied using alloenzymic analysis of six enzyme systems (MDH-1, ME, EST-3, ALP, PGM and HK) corresponding to 6 loci. All loci were found to be polymorphic in most of the populations studied. The observed heterozygosity was found to range from 0.161 to 0.276. Allele frequencies of all loci were used to estimate Neis (1972) genetic distance, which was found to range between 0.001 and 0.101 among the populations studied. UPGMA and neighbour-joining phylogenetic trees obtained by genetic distance matrix methods show that the honey bee populations from Bulgaria and Greece were clustered together, as were those from Serbia and Montenegro.

Analysis of stimulus apitechnical measures in bee society spring development

Influence of stimulus apitechnical measures on bee community biological development in spring was examined in this paper. Bee societies were placed in Langstrot-rut beehives with 10 frames, settled with bees belonging to Apis meliifera race. During the experiment, appropriate apitechnical measures were done during winter, spring and summer period and following parameters were observed: brood, honey and pollen surface. Application of timely warming, control and bee society expanding enabled regular bee community developing, that was established by following honey and pollen proceeds, and brood development. Average brood surface on the beginning of fruit pasture was 67.68 dm2 while at the end of fruit pasture was 81.81 dm2. Honey surface decreased on the average 8.93 dm2, while pollen surface because of the large proceeds, increased for 0.802 dm2. Statistical analysis of data showed that the pollen surface decreased for 0.429 dm2 if the brood surface increased for 1 dm2. Existing of mean degree of dependence (31.36%) of brood surface and changes of honey and pollen surface was established as well, but no statistical significance between brood surface and examining factors observing together was found.