ENVS 2210 Study Guide - Final Guide: Bee Hives, Honey Bee, Beekeeping
19 Apr 2019
School
Department
Course
Professor
Unit 1
Bees and Humans
- Economic impacts of honey bees
o Excellent biological study subjects
▪ Social, convenient and interesting
o Beneficial and productive insects
▪ Honey, crop pollination, entertainment, and other hive products
o Beekeeping
- We have not domesticated honey bees but instead used genetic selection for bes which
are easier to manage
- Successful beekeeping is characterized as anticipation, not reaction
- Beekeeping is colony population management
History and beekeeping
- Human honey hunting
o 9-10 thousand years ago
- Evolution of beekeeping practices
o Earliest records are from Egypt 4-5 thousand years ago
▪ Used as sweetener, medicine, alcohol
▪ Transported in clay cylinders
o Babylonians kept bees in pottery hives
o Aristotle used hive to observe bees activities and believed queen was a king
o Bee hives changed and were made out of pottery, wood, wicker, straw, or cork
▪ Upside down wicker baskets became popular aka skeps
▪ Bee gums: tree hollows made for bees to form hives
▪ Adding extra gum or baskets is called supering
o Scientific beekeeping occurred in 16th, 17th and 18th century
▪ 1800’s is the golden age of bee keeping
o No native honey bees in new world so apis melifera was introduced in 17th
century
o Most important design is by langstroth in 1851, it was a hive with movable
frames (9mm in between)
▪ Langstoth is father of modern beekeeping
- Pattern of todays apiculture
o 55 million moderm hvies producing 950 million kg of honey and 25 million kg of
beeswax
▪ Europe: 20 million hives, honey yield >15 kg/colony
▪ Asia: largest producer of honey and royal jelly, 6 million hives, 80million
kg of honey a year
▪ Africa: 14 million hives, traditional
▪ Australlia and pacific: 1 million colonies, migratory apiculture
▪ Americas: 12 million colonies
• Mexico is 4th largest producer, 2 million hives, 27kgcolony
• USA honey yield is 20 kg, vs Canada which exceeds over 60kg, and
has 650,000 colonies
Classification of honey bees
- What is a honey bee?
o In hymenoptera (four wings), 3 pairs of legs with segmented body
o Queen: lays eggs and produces pheromones to maintain colony cohesion,
stimulate foraging, and regulates reproduction
o Drones: mate with queens in spring and summer, developed via parthenogenesis
o Worker bees: majority of pop, do most tasks. These tasks depend on age but it is
flecible
- Evolutionary origin
o Evolved from sphecoid wasp with carnivore habits
o Oldest records in northern Europe and estimated to be over 50 million years old
o Apis is tropical in origin
- Classification
o Kingdom: Animalia
o Phylum: arthropoda (segmented body and exoskeleton)
o Class: insecta (3 regoins with 3 pairs of elgs, antennae and 2 pairs of wings)
o Order: hymenoptera (four winged insects with constricted abdomen, social)
o Superfamily: apoidea (10-11 families of 20,000 bee species)
o Family: apidae (4 sub families, honey bee, bumble bee, orchid bee and stingless)
o Genus: apis (true honey bee: 6 species)
o Species: apis mellifera (common western honey bee)
Self Test One:
1. Honey bees belong to the following family of insects Question options:
a. a) Apis
b. b) Hymenoptera
c. c) Diptera
d. d) Apidae
e. e) Antophorinae
2. point The honey bee, Apis mellifera, is Question options:
a. a) the major honey-producing bee world-wide
b. b) the most intensively studied insect species
c. c) the most important managed pollinator of crop plants
d. d) a) and b) only
e. e) a), b) and c) are all correct
3. The honey bee dance language Question options:
a. a) is a myth
b. b) are movements through which bees communicate to other bees the location
of flowers
c. c) are movements performed by bees to attract drones
d. d) is a dance performed by queen bees to influence worker behaviour
e. e) is none of the above
4. The earliest records of beekeeping come from ancient Question options:
a. Egypt
b. b) Babylon
c. c) Greece
d. d) China
e. e) Persia
5. The main characteristic of all traditional hives used until the 17th century was that
Question options:
a. they were made with straw
b. b) they allowed inspection of the colony
c. c) they had fixed combs
d. d) all of the above
e. e) none of the above
6. Honey bees probably originated from a Question options:
a. hornet
b. b) beetle
c. c) sphecoid wasp
d. d) stingless bee
e. e) bumble bee
7. The most important hive design of the 17th century was developed by the so-called
"father of modern beekeeping" Question options:
a) Charles Butler
b) Nickel Jacob
c) Richard Remmant
d) Lorenzo Langstroth
e) Anton Janscha
8. The two world's largest producers of honey are Question options:
a. Australia and New Zealand
b. b) United States and Mexico
c. c) China and the United States
d. d) Canada and Argentina
e. e) Germany and Russia
9. In today's beekeeping world, Canada excels in Question options:
a. wax production
b. b) honey yield per colony
c. c) pollination of crops
d. d) number of beekeepers
e. e) all of the above
10. Honey bees probably evolved in Question options:
a. Africa or Asia
b. b) Europe
c. c) the Americas
d. d) Pacific islands
e. e) none of the above
