Study of life cycle of Honey bee

Title:- Study of life cycle of Honey bee.

     The honey bee shows the complete metamorphosis thus termed as holometabolous insect. The queen is functional female. Life cycle of holometabolous insect consists of egg, larva, pupa, and adult.

Nuptial Flight:- The virgin queen takes her first aerial flight followed by a swarm of drones on warm, sunny days and mates with the queen during which she receives spermatophores from the drones and stores them in spermatheca to fertilize her eggs for as long as she lives. The queen returns to the hive after completion of mating. A drone is always killed in the act of mating, as it can expel the sperm with the help of muscles and fluid pressure in its abdomen. 

Eggs :- Egg laying starts after 3 days of copulation. The eggs are pinkish, elongated, cylindrical and usually attached to the base of the cell at the junction of any two walls. 

Eggs are of two types – 

1) Fertilized and 2) Unfertilized 

The fertilized eggs become queens and workers and unfertilized eggs develop into drones. Fertilized eggs are laid in queen or worker cells and unfertilized eggs are laid in drone cells. The queen has capacity to lays about 1500 eggs per day. Both fertilized and unfertilized eggs hatch into white, legless grubs within three days.

Grub (Larva) :- Larvae are tiny, white, apodous (legless) and eyeless. For the first 3 days all larvae are fed on "royal jelly" produced by the pharyngeal glands of the young workers. After 3 days, worker and drone bee larvae are fed a mixture of honey and pollen called "bee bread" but queen larvae are fed continuously on royal jelly. Caste determines the type of food supply. The grubs grow and molt several times, then the cells are sealed with a waxy cap.

Pupa :- Grub transformed into pupa in a sealed chamber. The wax lid is porous and allows air exchange for respiration. The pupa spins a thin silken cocoon around itself and pupates completely. The pupa undergoes metamorphosis, i.e. the transformation of a legless, wingless and eyeless insect into a winged insect with legs and eyes. The pupa is of the exarate type (ie the legs are free, not attached to the body).

Worker, drone and queen pupae can be distinguished by examining the distance between the eyes. In the case of drones the eyes are on the head, and in workers and queens the eyes are far apart. After the pupal period the sealed pupa tans and eventually turns light brown and the cell lid is cut off by the young bees with their jaws. After a few hours the pupal cuticle breaks and the adult emerges out.

Adult :- The emerged adult chew away the cell cap and crawls out to join the other bees as a member of the hieve. The morphological features are described in tubular form. Emergence of the young ones takes place after three weeks and they get busy in the indoor duties for about 2-3 weeks, Later on they are sent for the outdoor duties.

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