Apiculture (0+1)

Life Cycle

Queen deposits egg at the base of cell and fastens with mucilaginous secretion. After 3 days egg hatches and workers provide pearly white food in which “C” shaped larva floats. Cell is sealed when larva is fully grown. In the sealed cell it turns into pupa from which adult emerges. Larva sheds skin five times during development. The sealed cells containing worker and drone brood and honey can be differentiated on the basis of appearance (Figs 4.3 to 4.6).







Development: The developmental stages of honey bees are: egg, larva, pupa and the adult.
Duration of life stages of different castes of honey bee varies which is given in the table and presented through Fig 4.7 below:

Caste	Egg period (days)		Larval Stage(days)		Pupal Stage (days)		Total (days)
	A. cerana	A. mellifera	A. cerana	A. mellifera	A. cerana	A. mellifera	A. cerana	A. mellifera
Queen	3	3	5	5	7 - 8	8	15 - 16	16
Worker	3	3	4 - 5	5	11 - 12	12 - 13	18 - 20	21
Drone	3	3	7	7	14	14	24	24




Figure 4.7 Development period (in days) and development stages of different castes of honey bee Apis mellifera (After Winston)


In a comb, workers rear brood in the central part where temperature can easily be maintained and honey is stored in the upper and peripheral part (Fig. 4.5). Pollen is stored around brood area so that it is easily available for rearing brood (Fig. 4.4). Drone brood area can be differentiated from worker brood as the sealed brood cells in the former case are raised (Fig. 4.6).