Rearing Africanized honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) brood under laboratory conditions

Abstract

AbStRACt. We developed a method for rearing larvae of Africanized bees under laboratory conditions to determine the amount of diet needed during larval development to obtain a worker bee. We started with larvae 18-24 h old, which were transferred to polyethylene cell cups and fed for five days. We found that the amount of diet needed for successful larval development was: 4, 15, 25, 50, and 70 µL during the first to fifth days, respectively. The survival rate to the adult stage was 88.6% when the larvae received the daily amount of diet divided into two feedings, and 80% when they received only one feeding per day. The adult weight obtained in the laboratory, when the larvae received the daily amount of diet in a single dose, did not differ from those that were developed under field conditions (our control). All adults that we obtained in laboratory appeared to be normal. This technique has the potential to facilitate studies on brood pathogens, resistance mechanisms to diseases and also might be useful to test the impacts of transgenic products on honey bee brood.

Does Cry1Ac Bt-toxin impair development of worker larvae of Africanized honey bee?

“…The methods used to rear worker larvae of honey bees under controlled laboratory conditions (Silva et al. 2009) were suitable for toxicity assessment of Cry1Ac toxins and can be also adapted to test other toxins produced by transgenic crops.…”

“…Honey bee larvae were reared using artificial diet based on royal jelly and methods by Silva et al. (2009).…”

“…The artificial diet contained 49.5% royal jelly, 36.3% water, 6.8% d ‐fructose, 6.8% d ‐glucose and 1.1% yeast extract (Silva et al. 2009).…”

“…The larvae were fed for five consecutive days, counted from the transferring day, with the provision of 4, 15, 25, 50 and 70 μl of diet, respectively every day in all treatments. The amount of daily diet provided was determined based on the best amount of diet provided to larvae of first, second, third, fourth and fifth days (Silva et al. 2009).…”

Honeybee health in South America

“…In the laboratory, the symptoms can be recreated by feeding pollen from Stryphnodendron spp. (Silva et al 2009). Feeding with floral extracts from this tree significantly reduces adult bee lifespan (Cintra et al 2003), which helps to explain why strong honeybee colonies decline and die within a month.…”