Eastern honey bee
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Eastern honey bee ( Apis cerana ) |
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The Eastern honeybee ( Apis cerana ), also called Asiatic or formerly Indian honeybee , is one of the eight species of the honeybee genus found in Asia . It is the Eastern Asian counterpart to the Western honey bee ( Apis mellifera ) and is considered the original host of the parasitic Varroa mite .
features
Apis cerana is extremely similar in most characteristics to its sister species Apis mellifera and cannot be distinguished from it at first glance. It is often stated that it is somewhat smaller than this, but this information is unreliable, it only applies when comparing the (relatively large) European breeds of western honeybees, whereby the sizes overlap strongly. Reliable distinguishing features are: In the hind wing the radial artery has an extension that is missing in the western honey bee. On the abdomen, the tergites one to six have short tomentose hairs (" tomentose "), in the western honey bee only the first five. In drones, the endophallus of the aedeagus has a chitinized plate, which A. mellifera drones do not have. In addition, there are a number of other features that are uncertain in terms of their use: the labrum on the head is monochrome yellow or brown, not dark or dark with yellow markings. At the labial palpus , the fourth phalanx is slightly longer than the third, but not as long. In drones, the tibia of the hind legs has a longitudinal pit , the A. mellifera drones are missing. The number of hamuli (small hooks on the hind wing, which couple the wings to each other in flight) is on average 18, less than in A. mellifera (there about 21).
Distribution area
The distribution area of the species is in East Asia, north to the Russian Primorye region , the Japanese island of Honshū and the Himalayas , south to the Sunda Islands (only west of the Wallace Line ), in the southwest to the island of Sri Lanka , northwest to the west Afghanistan ( Herat Province ). The natural range of Apis cerana and Apis mellifera is in Central Asia, between the west of Afghanistan and the east of Iran, in a region with a desert-like climate, separated by a distribution gap in which bees do not naturally occur. This distribution gap is about 360 to 600 kilometers wide. In 2003 , an autochthonous occurrence of the western honey bee (in the new subspecies pomonella ) was described from the Tian Shan Mountains in Central Asia, north of the distribution area of the Eastern honeybees , so that the exact range limit in this little-studied region is still doubtful. The distribution area of the eastern honeybee includes almost all of China (with the exception of the desert-like northwest), all of India and rear India and most of the Malay Archipelago .
Subspecies
The division of the Eastern honeybee Apis cerana into subgroups is difficult and controversial between different scientists. According to Engel , a distinction is made between eight subspecies (which, however, are in some cases differently delimited or even completely contested by other editors:
- Apis cerana cerana (Radoszkowski, 1877), native to Afghanistan , south and central China , Taiwan, and north Vietnam
- Apis cerana heimifeng (Engel, 1999), native to higher regions of central China
- Apis cerana himalaya , also Apis cerana skorikovi (Ruttner, 1987), native to the Himalayan region from 1900 to 4000 m altitude
- Apis cerana indica (Radoszkowski, 1877), native to the Indian subcontinent , Burma , Malaysia , Indonesia and the Philippines . However, Nathan Lo and colleagues even suggest using genetic data to consider the subspecies Apis cerana indica as a separate species, Apis indica .
- Apis cerana japonica (Radoszkowski, 1877), native to Japan
- Apis cerana javana (Enderlein, 1906), native from Java to Timor
- Apis cerana johni (Skorikov, 1929), native to Sumatra
- Apis cerana nuluensis (Asian mountain bee, Tingek, Koeniger and Koeniger, 1996), native to Malaysia and Borneo exclusively in mountain forests from 1800 m to 3400 m altitude. According to Engel, this bee is not an independent species. Nevertheless, the previous Latin name Apis nuluensis and not Apis cerana nuluensis isstill used in many recent publications.
Use in beekeeping
In China e.g. B. approx. 2. million bee colonies are kept in beehives , but wild colonies are also plundered ( honey hunting ). In many areas of Asia - mostly as peasant sideline - races are traditionally the Eastern honeybee in log hives or bees walls held. Because of their higher effectiveness, these bees are increasingly being kept in magazine hives . Despite the lower average yield, the eastern honey bee is the better choice in many areas because of better climatic adaptation and tolerance to varroa infestation (no expensive and laborious control required). In recent times, the economy with magazine loot from the developed areas has also been extended to rural underdeveloped areas through development aid.
Natural enemies
In contrast to the western honey bee, the eastern honey bee lives in an adapted and balanced relationship with the varroa mite . Through various defense mechanisms, such as B. cleaning behavior and shorter cover-up time of the worker brood, this mite can only reproduce in the drone brood and only in limited numbers. Treatment of the varroa mite is therefore not necessary in these colonies. In the east of the Soviet Union , the host changed from Apis cerana to Apis mellifera as early as 1952 . It can be assumed that another such host change took place in Japan around 1957 .
The eastern honey bee defends itself against attacks by hornets , such as the Asian giant hornet , with the help of the heat globe . This makes it the only state-building insect that can defend itself against the giant hornet.
Distribution area of Apis cerana.
Distribution area of Apis cerana in Nepal.
A. cerana bees form a ball around attacking hornets and kill them by briefly heating them to over 45 ° C
literature
- Nikolaus Koeniger, Gudrun Koeniger, Salim Tingek: Competition or harmonious coexistence? The honey bees of Southeast Asia . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Beekeeperzeitung (ADIZ), 6/2006, pp. 12 ff, ISSN 0002-5828 .
- Friedrich Ruttner: Natural history of honey bees. Franckh Kosmos Verlag, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-440-09125-2 .
Web links
- State Institute for Apiculture Hohen Neuendorf e. V .: Honey bees in the zoological system
- Ratna Thapa: The honey bees in the Himalayas and beekeeping in Nepal (PDF file; 445 kB)
- A. cerana picture collection ( memento from February 21, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
- Page about Apis cerana japonica with numerous comparisons to the western honeybee
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Friedrich Ruttner: Biogeography and Taxonomy of Honeybees. Springer Verlag, Berlin and Heidelberg 1988. ISBN 978-3-642-72651-4 . Table 1.1 on page 6 and chap. 9 Apis cerana, p. 120 ff.
- ^ Walter S. Sheppard & Marina D. Meixner (2003): Apis mellifera pomonella, a new honey bee subspecies from Central Asia. Apidology 34: 367-375. doi: 10.1051 / apido: 2003037 (engl.)
- ↑ H. Randall Hepburn, Deborah R. Smith, Sarah E. Radloff, Gard W. Otis: Infraspecific categories of Apis cerana: morphometric, allozymal and mtDNA diversity. Apidologie (2001) 32 (1): 3-23. doi: 10.1051 / apido: 2001108 (engl.)
- ↑ Michael S. Engel: The taxonomy of recent and fossil honey bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Apis). Journal of Hymenoptera Research (1999) 8
- Jump up ↑ Nathan Lo, Rosalyn S. Gloag, Denis L. Anderson, Benjamin P. Oldroyd (2010): A molecular phylogeny of the genus Apis suggests that the Giant Honey Bee of the Philippines, A. breviligula Maa, and the Plains Honey Bee of southern India, A. indica Fabricius, are valid species. Systematic Entomology 35: 226-233. doi : 10.1111 / j.1365-3113.2009.00504.x (engl.)
- ↑ M. Ono, T. Igarashi, E. Ohno, M. Sasaki: Unusual thermal defense by a honeybee against mass attack by hornets (Vespa mandarinia japonica). In: Nature . (1995) 377, pp. 334-336. (engl.)