Early Life, Mating and Egg Laying ofApis CeranaQueens in Kashmir

The mating flight times of native Apis cerana japonica Radoszkowski and introduced Apis mellifera L in sympatric conditions

“…The mating behavior of Apis cerana indica Fabr has been extensively studied (Sharma, 1960;Adlakha, 1971;Ruttner et al, 1972;Woyke, 1975;Shah and Shah, 1980;Verma, 1990). The difference in the mating flight time of sympatric Apis species is thought to be a key factor of interspecific reproductive isolation (Koeniger and Wijayagunasekera, 1976;Koeniger et al, 1988).…”

Impact of Confinement and Population Size on the Instrumentally Inseminated Queen’s Performance of Apis cerana Species in South Korea

“…Naturally mated queens begin laying eggs 2-4 days after the last mating flight (Shah and Shah, 1980). Mated queens will never mate again when they begin to oviposit and will remain in the colony for the rest of their lives (unless they depart during colony swarming) (Winston, 1991).…”

“…Virgin queen emerges into a colony of sterile workers and usually initiates several orientation flights when she is about 4~6 days (Sharma, 1960;Woyke, 1975;Shah and Shah, 1980). Queens of A. cerana mate naturally by taking two mating flights (Sharma, 1960;Ruttner et al, 1972;Shah and Shah, 1980) and copulating with an average of 10 drones in one flight (Woyke, 1973). After the mating flights, about 1.3 to 2.7 million spermatozoa are stored in her spermatheca (Ruttner et al, 1972;Woyke, 1975).…”

Honeybees and their management in India /

“…In South India the foraging range of A. cerana indica was 1,780 m , whereas it was 1,040 m in Bihar (Naim and Phadke, 1972). Dhaliwal and Sharma (1972) found that 75% of the foragers of Indian honeybee went up to 800 m and 50% up tc 900-1,100 m. But workers in Indian honeybee flew as far as 3.75 km to forage on Crocus sativus pollen in Kashmir (Shah, 1980). A. mellifera has longer foraging range of 3-4 km but porbably it varies with the Bora since the bees of the species did not go farther than 2,000 m from the apiary and most were less than 1,000 m away in berseem fields (Dhaliwal and Atwal, 1974).…”

“…Mating can take place any time after a week or so and queen starts laying after 2-3 days of mating. Most queens of Indian honeybee mated on 6th day and started egg laying on 8th day (Shah and Shah, 1980;Sharma, 1951). A. cerana indica queens also have multiple matings like A. mellifera (Sharma, 1960).…”