Free Essay About Profile Of Honey Bee

Introduction

Honey bees, whose scientific name are Apis mellifera, are of great importance to humanity in that they pollinate a third of world’s nuts, fruits, and vegetables which are a source of food (Wallberg et al, 2014). There are over 16000 species described so far with notable differences in habitat, social behavior, and diet. They belong to phylum Arthropoda and class insecta. Some of the notable characteristics include three body parts, three pairs of legs, two pairs of wings, and segmented antennae. Honey bee is a common name for Apis mellifera in my home area Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Life cycle of Apis mellifera.

Honey bees exhibits complete metamorphosis just like bees, ants, moths, wasps, and others. When the queen bee reaches reproductive age, it lays eggs which hatches into larva. The larva undergoes several molting stages which allow it to grow into a pupa. Pupa then undergoes reorganization of the body to form a winged adult (Kalman, 2004, p.10).

Structure and function of reproductive system

Female reproductive system
The system is composed of ovaries, oviducts, vagina, and spermatheca. The worker has similar reproductive structures, only that they are reduced in sizes (Jabde, 2005, p.95). The ovaries are paired organs. In each of the ovaries are smaller units known as ovarioles which are 150 or more in number. When the queen is fertile, the ovarioles enlarge covering most of the abdominal cavity. Egg cells emerge from germinal tissue found in the ovarioles and moves down the tubule. As they move, they undergo differentiation forming three cell types: egg, nurse, and follicle cells which cover the egg providing nourishment. After mating, the queen lays more than 2000 eggs a day. Mating usually take place when the queen is in the second week of adult life. In queen bees, sperms are stored in spermatheca and can have a life span of between two and eight years.

Male reproductive system

The system is made up of testes, vas differentia, seminal vesicles, and mucous glands, all of which are paired. In addition are ejaculatory tract and a penis (Kalman, 2005, p. 97). The immature adult male’s abdominal cavity is largely filled up with testes which have bean-like shapes and are whitish in color. Testes are made up of a number of tubules which produces sperm and it is also where sperms mature. When the bees attain sexual maturity, testes reduces in size and turn to greenish-yellow tissue. After sperm production in tubules, they are passed into seminal vesicles.

Evolution of Honey bee

Bees are believed to be wasps which left predation for nectar and pollen. They are thought to have evolved from sphecid, ancestral wasp, which had mouthparts modified to extract nectar hence began picking pollen to feed the brood instead of feeding with prey. From sphecoid wasps, they are believed to have diverged in the middle cretaceous period, 100 million years ago, which coincides with the emergence of flowering plants (Winston, 1987). This makes a lot of sense as evident by the mutual relationship between angiosperms and pollinating species.
The recent discovery of 100-million-year old bee embedded in amber northern Burma further supports the evolutionary origin of Apis mellifera from wasps. The fossil shared so many characteristics with wasp thus backing the evolutionary link between the two (Cornell University, 2014).

References

Cornell University. (2006). Two Studies On Bee Evolution Reveal Surprises. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 5, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061209083342.htm
Jabde, P. V. (2005). Text Book of Applied Zoology. Darya- Ganj, ND: Discovery Publishing House
Kalman, B. (2004). The Life Cycle of a Honeybee. New York, NY: Crabtree Publishing Company
Wallberg et al. (2014). A worldwide survey of genome sequence variation provides insight into the evolutionary history of the honeybee Apis mellifera. Nature Genetics, 46(10), 1081-1088
Winston, M. L. (1987). The Biology of the Honey Bee. New York , NY: Harvard University Press