Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Each i lament is a separate assembly line for making eggs (Chapter 7).
Wild-type pollen foragers have more ovarioles than nectar foragers.
Wild-type bees with more ovarioles are more sensitive to sucrose, for-
age earlier in life, have higher titers of vitellogenin, bias foraging to-
ward pollen, and collect nectar with lower concentrations of sugar.
High-strain workers have more vitellogenin circulating in the blood
than do low-strain workers. h e relationships of the ovary and vitel-
logenin to other phenotypic traits are discussed in more detail in
Chapter 7.
5.10 Phenotypic Architecture of Males
Males do not forage and do not engage in most of the activities of worker
honey bees; therefore, we have collected far less information about the
behavior of high- and low-strain drones. However, the phenotypic traits
we have looked at coni rm what we have observed in workers. High-
strain drones are more responsive to sucrose, initiate l ight earlier in
life, and demonstrate higher locomotor activity.
5.11 Phenotypic Architecture of Africanized Honey Bees
Tanya Pankiw studied Africanized honey bees (AHB) and compared
their behavior with that of bees of European origin. African and Euro-
pean populations of honey bees separated about 1 million years ago
and underwent independent evolution in relative isolation from each
other until African bees were introduced into Brazil in 1956. Pankiw
studied a population of AHB in Texas and compared them with com-
mercial European honey bees. AHB were more sensitive to sugar, for-
aged earlier in life, demonstrated a stronger bias for collecting pollen,
and collected nectar with a lower concentration of sugar. In other
words, they demonstrated the high-pollen-hoarding syndrome of high-
strain bees (Table 5.2).
