Beekeeping Notes

I. Bees are Insects

A. Interesting facts There’s 3 times more insects than any other form of terrestrial life.

~1000 species in a normal backyard ~1,000,000 insects per acre wt. ants > wt. of all other land animals

benefits: pollination, predators, recycle nutrients, turn soil, recycle wastes, dead carcasses, dead wood, turn soil, shape ecologies (ie. fire ant in southeast: in LA has eliminated ticks, in GA has eliminated other ant species.)

• pests: $750,000,000 in GA, herbivory, livestock parasites and pests, fire ants, urban tramp species (C. formosanus, Monomorium; at Harvard Univ., a colony of Monomorium tracked radioactive materials from lab dishes to walls), human parasites and illnesses, disrupt ecologies, venomous insects

B. What are insects?

• Animal Kingdom

• Some major phyla: Protozoa (single-celled), Coelenterata (jellyfish, corals, sea anemones), Mollusca (clams, snails, octopi), Annelida (earthworms, leeches), Chordata (fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals)

• subphylum Crustacea

• phylum Arthropoda—segmented body “jointed foot”

• Some of the classes: Merostomata (horseshoe crabs), Arachnida (spiders), Diplopoda (millipedes), Chilopoda (centipedes)

• class Hexapoda—6-legged

• Three body regions or tagmata: head, thorax, abdomen and functions

• 1 pr. Antennae, 2 pr. Wings, 3 pr. Legs

• incomplete vs. complete metamorphosis

C. Order Hymenoptera ’’membranous wings” or Greek for “marriage” (of wings to hamuli)

humanly-speaking probably most beneficial order. Good predators and parasites and pollinators complete metamorphosis

sex is determined (for practical purposes) by gene dose: haploid (non-fertilized) eggs become male, diploid (fertilized) eggs are female 4 wings, hind smaller with hamuli, stinging ovipositor

suborder Symphyta is the “broad-wasted” Hymenopterans, including sawflies. Nearly all are phytophagous.

suborder Apocrita includes “slender-wasted” Hymenopterans, including parasitic wasps. Waist provides flexibility. subgroup Parasitica or “nonstinging”

subgroup Aculeata or “stinging” includes ants, bees, and hunting wasps Wasps sting prey and larvae are carnivores; bees sting for defense and larvae vegetarians

D. Bees

• Belong to superfamily Apoidea, which includes sphecoid wasps and bees.

• pronotal lobe is small and does not connect to the tegulumpronotal processes meet ventrally

Sphecoids and bees also share in common the habit of cleaning the thoracic dorsum by forward scraping motions of the middle tarsi; other hymenopterans use front tarsi.

But now we separate the true bees (Apiformes) from the Spheciformes:

Bees have specializations for vegetarian diet: broadened hind basitarsi (this can id a cleptoparasitic species that otherwise is hairless and looks like a wasp), branched hairs (wasps’ are single), stomach filter, mouthparts that fold into a long nectar-sucking tube

25.000 species of bees, compared to 5,500 reptiles+amphibians, 8,600 birds, 3,500 mammals

4.000 bee species in North America; 5 families in eastern U.S: Colletidae, Andrenidae, Halictidae, Megachilidae, Apidae

Most species diversity is found in dry xeric habitats of the world: California, Israel, Mediterranean.