NATURAL NEST CHARACTERISTICS OF APIS MELLIFERA JEMENITICA (HYMENOPTERA; APIDAE) AND ITS IMPLICATIONS IN FRAME HIVE ADOPTION

Journal Article

Sharma, N. Adgaba, A. A. Al-Ghamdi, A. Getachew, Y. Tadesse, A. Almaktary, M. J. Ansari, M. Al-Madani and D. . 2016

• المجلة \ الصحيفة: The Journal of Animal & Plant Sciences
• رقم العدد: 4
• رقم الإصدار السنوي: 26
• الصفحات: 1156-1163

مستخلص المنشور

Apis mellifera jemenitica is autochthonous to a
large area of the Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia,
Yemen and Oman) and it also occurs in vast areas of
Africa in the Sahel climatic zone (Ruttner, 1988;
Hepburn and Radloff, 1998). The bees are reported as the
smallest honey bee race of Apis mellifera that overlaps
with Apis cerana for many of its morphological values
(Ruttner, 1988). Moreover, Al-Ghamdi et al. (2013)
reported that in A. m. jemenitica of the Arabian Peninsula
some of the morphological characters related to their
body size are smaller than those of the African
populations. The race is well adapted to the hot and dry
environmental conditions of the region, not only because
of its smaller body size but also through maintaining
small colony sizes.
Honey bee colony nest space, volume and
colony size are reported as important factors in
determining wax production, comb construction and
subsequent colony performance and survival (Szabo,
1977; Wright, 2003; Hepburn et al., 2014). Moreover,
one of the criteria by which honey bee naturally select
their nest sites is mainly based on nest cavity volume
(Seeley and Morse, 1976; Schmidt and Hureley, 1995;
Villa, 2004). Under natural conditions within A.
mellifera; nest volumes vary greatly from race to race
and ecology to ecology (Prange and Nelson, 2007;
Phiancharoen et al., 2011). Moreover, honey bee
colonies’ energy requirements, nest defense, labor and
homeostasis conditions are known as the most important
factors in determining the upper limit of their nest
volume (Prange and Nelson, 2007) indicating that nest
volume is an essential element in colony performance and
survival.