Apis mellifera Linnaeus, 1758
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The European honey bee, also known as the common or western honey bee (Apis mellifera) is so named because it produces large amounts of honey. It is believed that the honey bee originated in Africa and spread to northern Europe, India, and China. The honey bee is not native to North America, but was brought here with the first colonists. The honey bee is now distributed world wide.
European honey bees are variable in color, but are some shade of black or brown intermixed with yellow. The bee ranges from 3/8 to 3/4 of an inch long, with workers being the smallest and the queen being the largest. A queen bee is elongate and has a straight stinger with no barbs. A worker bee has hind legs specialized for collecting pollen - each leg is flattened and covered with long fringed hairs that form a pollen basket. A worker bee's stinger has barbs. A drone bee is stout-bodied and has large eyes.
Wild European honey bee nests are found in hollow trees or man-made structures. Managed colonies are often kept in wooden hives. Flowers in meadows, open woods, agricultural areas, and yards and gardens are visited by worker bees.
The honey bee is probably one of the best-known of all insects in the world (3); it performs a vital role in the pollination of flowering plants, including our crop species (4) . There are three 'castes' within a bee hive, a 'queen' (the reproductive female), the 'drones' (reproductive males) and 'workers' (non-reproductive females) (3). All three castes are broadly similar in appearance; the body is covered in short hairs, and is divided into a head, a thorax and an abdomen, the head features two large eyes and a pair of antennae. The thorax bears two pairs of wings above, and three pairs of legs below and there is a slender 'waist' between the thorax and abdomen (5). The queen has a much longer and slender abdomen than the workers, and the drones can be identified by their broader abdomens and much larger eyes (5).
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European honeybees prefer habitats that have an abundant supply of suitable flowering plants, such as meadows, open wooded areas, and gardens. They can survive in grasslands, deserts, and wetlands if there is sufficient water, food, and shelter. They need cavities (e.g. in hollow trees) to nest in.
Habitat Regions: temperate ; tropical ; terrestrial
Terrestrial Biomes: desert or dune ; savanna or grassland ; chaparral ; forest
Wetlands: swamp
Other Habitat Features: urban ; suburban ; agricultural
- Milne, M., L. Milne. 2000. National Audubon Society: Field Guide To Insects and Spiders. New York, Canada: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc..
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Apis mellifera queens usually live 2 to 3 years, but some have been known to last for 5 years. Workers typically only live for a few weeks, sometimes a few months if their hive becomes dormant in winter. Males live for 4-8 weeks at the most.
Typical lifespan
Status: wild: 2 to 3 years.
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Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLDS) Stats
Public Records: 64
Specimens with Barcodes: 272
Species With Barcodes: 1
The Buckfast bee is a strain of honey bee. It is a hybrid, a cross of many strains of bees, developed by "Brother Adam", (born Karl Kehrle on 3 August 1898 in Germany), who was in charge of beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey, where the bees are still bred today. Most of the breeding work in Europe is done by breeders belonging to the breeders accociation "Gemeinschaft der Europäischen Buckfastimker". This organisation is maintaining a pedigree for Buckfast bees, originating from Brother Adam's years.
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Origin
In the early 20th century bee populations were being decimated by Isle of Wight disease. This condition, later called "acarine" disease, after the acarine parasitic mite that invaded the bees' tracheal tubes and shortened their lives, was killing off thousands of colonies in the British Isles in the early part of the 20th century.[1]
In 1916 there were only 16 surviving colonies in the Abbey. All of them were either pure Ligurian (Italian) or of Ligurian origin, hybrids between Ligurian and the English black bee A.m. mellifera. Brother Adam also imported some more Italian queens. From these he began to develop what would come to be known as the Buckfast bee.
Heritage
The Buckfast contains heritage from mainly A.m. ligurica (North Italian), A.m. mellifera (English), A.m. mellifera (French), A.m. anatolica (Turkish) and A.m. cecropia (Greek). The Buckfast bee of today also contains heritage from two rare and docile African stocks A. m. sahariensis and the A.m. monticola, but not the "Africanized" A. m. scutellata. "[2]
History
Brother Adam moved the bees he discovered to the isolated valley of Dartmoor which became a mating station for selective breeding. With no other bees within range, Brother Adam could maintain their genetic integrity and develop desirable traits.
Brother Adam investigated various honey bee races and made many long journeys in Europe, Africa and the Middle-East searching for pure races and interesting local stocks. The book In Search of the Best Strains of Bee tells about his travels in search of genetic building blocks. Brother Adam imported more bees to cross with his developing Buckfast bee.
Every new bee strain or bee race was first crossed with the existing Buckfast Bee. In most cases, the new desired qualities were passed on to the new generation and the new combination was then made stable with further breeding work. Every crossing with a new race took about 10 years before the desired genes were fixed in the strain. Over seventy years, Brother Adam managed to develop a vigorous, healthy, and fecund honey bee which he christened the Buckfast bee.
The Buckfast bee is popular among beekeepers and is available from bee breeders in Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, France, and more. Most of the Buckfast bee's qualities are very favorable. They are extremely gentle and highly productive. Brother Adam, in his book, Beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey writes that in 1920 they obtained "an average of no less than 192 lbs surplus per colony and individual yields exceeding 3 cwt [approx. 336 lbs]. "[3] In the 1986 BBC-affiliated documentary, The Monk and the Honey Bee, more than 400 pounds of honey are reported to have been produced by a single Buckfast colony. According to Brother Adam, "The average annual honey yield over the last thirty years has been 30 kg (66 lb.) per colony. Thus we have a favourable balance compared with the average production in America or in Europe. "[4][5]
The stock has been imported into the United States (eggs, semen, and adult queens via Canada) and they are easily available.[6]
Buckfast Breeding Program
The qualities and characteristics desired in Brother Adam's breeding can be divided into three groups; Primary, Subsidiary, and 3rd, those that have bearing on management.
Primary
Primary qualities are those qualities essential for any maximum honey production.
- Fecundity - maintaining at least 9 frames of brood May - July
- Foraging zeal - a boundless capacity for foraging work, close inbreeding to intensify this quality can be counter-productive.
- Resistance to disease
- Disinclination to swarm
Subsidiary
- Longevity
- Wing-power
- Keen sense of smell
- Defensive characteristics
- Hardiness and ability to over winter
- Spring development
- Thrift
- Instinct of self provisioning
- Arrangement of honey stores
- Wax production and comb building
- Gathering of pollen
- Tongue-reach
Qualities which Influence Management
- Good temper
- Calm behavior
- Disinclination to propolize
- No brace combs
- Cleanliness
- Honey capping
- Sense of orientation[7][8]
Characteristics
Strong Points
- Good honey producer
- Prolific queens (lay many eggs)
- Overwinters well
- Frugal - Low amount of brood during fall (uses less honey stores during winter)
- Packs brood nest with honey for good wintering
- Curtails egg laying during dearths
- Brood rearing ceases during late fall
- Extremely gentle, with low sting instinct
- Low swarm instinct
- High Tracheal Mite Tolerant
- Low incidence of chalkbrood and wax moths due to good housecleaning techniques
- Very hygienic
- Build-up rapidly once started
- Produces little propolis/brace comb[9]
- Does well in cold/wet spring
Weak Points
- Low amount of brood during Winter
- Less honey or pollen due to erratic spring weather conditions
- Possibility of second generation defensiveness if not requeened
- This is not due to being a "second generation" hybrid. The Buckfast is a mix of many, many generations with many different species. A likely cause of "hot" hives in subsequent generations is the introduction of Africanized bee genetics being introduced either to the mother queen or to the daughter queen via local Africanized drones. Buckfast bees in cooler regions where Africanized bees have not arrived do not have this problem.
Significance
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References
- ^ http://www.douglasfarm.net/worksofbrotheradam.htm#363466183
- ^ http://www.douglasfarm.net/buckfast.htm
- ^ Brother Adam, Beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey, (Northern Bee Books, 1987), 12.
- ^ http://www.douglasfarm.net/worksofbrotheradam.htm#363466183
- ^ Brother Adam, "Beekeeping at Buckfast", 1950.
- ^ http://pubs.cas.psu.edu/freepubs/pdfs/agrs93.pdf pg. 20
- ^ http://www.douglasfarm.net/buckfast.htm
- ^ http://perso.fundp.ac.be/~jvandyck/homage/qualite.html
- ^ http://www.mainebee.com/articles/race_strain.php
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European honeybees prefer habitats that have an abundant supply of suitable flowering plants, such as meadows, open wooded areas, and gardens. They can survive in grasslands, deserts, and wetlands if there is sufficient water, food, and shelter. They need cavities (e.g. in hollow trees) to nest in.
Habitat Regions: temperate ; tropical ; terrestrial
Terrestrial Biomes: desert or dune ; savanna or grassland ; chaparral ; forest
Wetlands: swamp
Other Habitat Features: urban ; suburban ; agricultural
- Milne, M., L. Milne. 2000. National Audubon Society: Field Guide To Insects and Spiders. New York, Canada: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc..
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| Rights holder/Author | ©1995-2012, The Regents of the University of Michigan and its licensors |
| Source | http://www.biokids.umich.edu/critters/Apis_mellifera/ |
Apis_mellifera queens usually live 2 to 3 years, but some have been known to last for 5 years. Workers typically only live for a few weeks, sometimes a few months if their hive becomes dormant in winter. Males live for 4-8 weeks at the most.
Typical lifespan
Status: wild: 2 to 3 years.
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| Rights holder/Author | ©1995-2012, The Regents of the University of Michigan and its licensors |
| Source | http://www.biokids.umich.edu/critters/Apis_mellifera/ |
Chemical Structure
Melittin is the main component of apitoxin (Apis mellifera venom), accounting for approximately 50% of its dry weight (Terra et al., 2006). The water-soluble, 26 amino acid-long polypeptide chain, weighing 2,840 Da, is largely composed of hydrophobic residues, with the exception of the cationic and hydrophilic carboxy-terminal sequence (Vogel et al., 1986). It is this amphiphilic nature that gives melittin its characteristic detergent-like properties (Maulet et al., 1980).
Using a range of techniques, including X-ray crystallography, NMR spectroscopy, and molecular dynamics simulations, melittin was found to adopt a variety of conformations, depending on factors including the pH and the type of aqueous medium. For instance, when dissolved in water, the hydrophilic residues 22-26 were shown to form a non-helical segment, whereas the remaining hydrophobic residues of melittin were reported to form a bent helix, composed of two smaller α-helical segments of residues 1-11 and 12-21. The concave side of the bent helix was found to be hydrophobic, while the convex side was shown to be hydrophilic (Vogel, et al., 1986). Additionally, melittin was found to be tetrameric at high pH, a random coil at pH 7.0, and monomeric in plasma (Terra, et al., 2006).
Mode of Action
In the bloodstream, melittin is able to rapidly bind to erythrocytes (red blood cells), inducing the release of haemoglobin and other cellular contents into the extracellular medium. Once melittin has penetrated the erythrocyte, it causes micellisation of phosphatidylcholine bilayers, ultimately leading to haemolysis and cell death (Dempsey, et al., 1990).
Apart from its ability to disrupt lipid bilayers, melittin can also inhibit transmembrane proteins, including Na+/K+-ATPase, leading to a rise in sodium concentration within cells (Yang, et al., 2001). The increase in sodium induces an increase in the concentration of intracellular calcium, which results in the increased contraction of cardiac and smooth muscle.
Potential Therapeutic Use
Melittin is currently one of the most extensively used peptides in the research on lipid-peptide and peptide-peptide interactions (Wessman, et al., 2010). The presence of a single tryptophan residue at position 19 allows for a facilitated interpretation of fluorescence data via the tryptophan fluorescence technique, whereby intrinsic fluorescence emissions can be measured via the excitation of tryptophan residues (Raghuraman, et al., 2004).
More recently, the peptide has been shown to possess a variety of therapeutic uses. For instance, melittin is currently being analysed as a potential treatment and preventative for HIV. In a study currently being conducted at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, a melittin-nanoparticle complex was shown to effectively destroy the AIDS-causing virus by forming pores in its protective viral envelope, required for viral reproduction (Evangelou Strait, 2013).
Another use of melittin is in the treatment of cancer. A promising study, once again conducted by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, involves the attaching of melittin to a different nanoparticle. The novel melittin-nanoparticle complex, named the “nanobee”, selectively targets tumour cells, thus avoiding healthy cells. Once attached to a tumour cell, melittin is able to break down the tumour by forming pores in the cell membrane (Loftus, 2009).
- Dempsey C.E., Sternberg B. 1991. Reversible disc-micellization of dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine bilayers induced by melittin and [Ala-14]melittin. Biochim. Biophys. Acta. 1061:175–184.
- Evangelou Strait J. (2013, March 7). Nanoparticles loaded with bee venom kill HIV. Newsroom. Retrieved June 19, 2013 from http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/25061.aspx
- Loftus P. (2009, September 28). The Buzz: Targeting cancer with bee venom in animal studies, tiny composite spheres deliver drug directly to tumor sites; 'It's Like an Injection'. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved June 19, 2013 from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203803904574433382922095534.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird
- Maulet Y., Matthey-Prevot B., Kaiser G., Rüegg U.T., Fulpius B.W. 1980. Purification and chemical characterization of melittin and acetylated derivatives. Biochim. Biophys. Acta. 625:274-280
- Raghuraman H., Chattopadhyay A. 2004. Interaction of melittin with membrane cholesterol: a fluorescence approach. Biophys J. 87:2419–2432.
- Terra R.M., Guimarães J.A., Verli H. 2006. Structural and functional behavior of biologically active monomeric melittin. Journal of Molecular Graphics and Modelling. 25:767–772.
- Vogel H., Jahnig F. 1986. The structure of melittin in membranes. Biophysical Journal. 50(4):573-582.
- Wessman P., Morin M., Reijmar K., Edwards K. 2010. Effect of a-helical peptides on liposome structure: A comparative study of melittin and alamethicin. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 346:127–135.
- Yang S., Zhang X.M., Jiang M.H. 2001. Inhibitory effect of melittin on Na+,K+-ATPase from guinea pig myocardial mitochondria. Acta Pharmacologica Sinica. 22(3):279-282.
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