Karyological Study of Honeybee

Chromosomal diversity in Apis mellifera carnica from Serbia

“…The first cytogenetic characterization of the chromosomes of the honey bee Apis mellifera was done by Hoshiba and Kusanagi (1978). They gave a full description of all chromosomes and stated their biometric characteristics.…”

“…The first karyological investigations of honey bees Apis mellifera carnica from Yugoslav regions (Stanimirovic et al, 1997) showed that, with regard to the biometric value of its chromosomes, the karyotype of the Banat honey bee ecotype corresponded to those of Hoshiba and Kusanagi (1978), therefore the Banat karyotype was taken as referential. The biometric analyses of chromosomes of the two investigated ecotypes, Banat (B) and SyenichkoPeshterski (SP), from Yugoslav territory indicated differences in relative length and centromere index (arm ratio) of their chromosomes.…”

A centromere-specific probe for fluorescence in situ hybridization on chromosomes of Apis mellifera L

“…The morphology of the chromosomal set (fig 1 a) was different from the preparations made by Hoshiba and Kusangi (1978 Other centromere-specific or pericentric probes have been isolated for a variety of species (Singer and Berg, 1991). Like GC-6, these probes are generally characterized by a high AT content and a repetitive sequence structure.…”

“…Sanderson and Hall (1948) found that one chromosome was larger than the rest of the set. This chromosome was also identified by Hoshiba and Kusangi (1978). They further claimed to have been able to identify all 16 chromosomes individually based on the various arm-length ratios, and observed 8 metacentric and 8 submeta/subtelocentric chromosomes.…”

A scientific note on a simple method for karyotyping honey bee (Apis mellifera) eggs

“…For example, it may be useful to determine if low egg viability is due to the presence of haploid eggs in worker cells, or to other causes such as policing of worker-laid eggs or disease. Although there are effective protocols for examining metaphase chromosomes from the gonads of adult queens and drones (Hoshiba and Kusanagi, 1978;Hoshiba and Okada, 1986) or from the brain ganglia of pre-pupae (Stanimirovic et al, 2005) we have been unable to find a procedure suitable for examining metaphase chromosomes in eggs. Here we report a simple protocol for determining the ploidy of honey bee eggs based on Imai et al (1988), who provide elaborate details of the fixation procedure.…”