Cape honey bee

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Cape honey bee
Cape honey bee on Oxalis.jpg
A Cape honey bee on a Oxalis pes-caprae flower
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hymenoptera
Family: Apidae
Genus: Apis
Species:
A. mellifera
Subspecies:
A. m. capensis
Trinomial name
Apis mellifera capensis
Cape and African Honey Bee range.svg
The natural ranges of the
  Cape honey bee,
   African honey bee, and the
  contact zone where the two subspecies overlap and hybridize

The Cape honey bee or Cape bee (Apis mellifera capensis) is a southern South African subspecies of the western honey bee. They play a major role in South African agriculture and the economy of the Western Cape by pollinating crops and producing honey in the Western Cape region of South Africa. The species is endemic to the Western Cape region of South Africa on the coastal side of the Cape Fold mountain range.

Contents

The Cape honey bee is unique among honey bee subspecies because workers can lay diploid, female eggs, by means of thelytoky, [1] while workers of other subspecies (and, in fact, unmated females of virtually all other eusocial insects) can only lay haploid, male eggs. Not all workers are capable of thelytoky – only those expressing the thelytoky phenotype, which is controlled by a recessive allele at a single locus (workers must be homozygous at this locus to be able to reproduce by thelytoky). [2]

The bee tends to be darker in colour than the African honey bee (A.m. scutellata) with an almost entirely black abdomen, this differentiates it from African honey bees which have a yellow band on the upper abdomen. Other differences that might allow for differentiation of the subspecies from African honey bees are their propensity to lay multiple eggs in a single cell and the raised capping on their brood cells. [3]

Interaction with African bees

In 1990 beekeepers transported Cape honey bees into northern South Africa, where they do not occur naturally. This has created a problem for the region's African honey bee populations. [4] Reproducing diploid females without fertilization bypasses the eusocial insect hierarchy; an individual more related to her own offspring than to the offspring of the queen will trade her inclusive fitness benefits for individual fitness benefit of producing her own young. [5]

This opens up the possibility of social parasitism: If a female worker expressing the thelytokous phenotype from a Cape honey bee colony can enter a colony of A.m. scutellata, she can potentially take over that African bee colony. [6] A behavioral consequence of the thelytoky phenotype is queen pheromonal mimicry, which means the parasitic workers can sneak their eggs in to be raised with those from the African bees. [7] Although their eggs are removed by other workers, [8] African honey bee workers are not efficient enough to remove every egg, [9] it has been suggested that is because they're similar to the honey bee queen's eggs. [10]

As a result, the parasitic A.m. capensis workers increase in number within a host colony, while numbers of the A.m. scutellata workers that perform foraging duties (A.m. capensis workers are greatly under-represented in the foraging force of an infested colony) dwindle, owing to competition in egg laying between A.m. capensis workers and the queen, and to the eventual death of the queen. This causes the death of the colony upon which the capensis females depended, so they will then seek out a new host colony. [11]

Thelytokous parthenogenesis and maintenance of heterozygosity

The effects of central fusion and terminal fusion on heterozygosity Central fusion and terminal fusion automixis.svg
The effects of central fusion and terminal fusion on heterozygosity

Parthenogenesis is a natural form of reproduction in which growth and development of embryos occur without fertilisation. Thelytoky is a particular form of parthenogenesis in which the development of a female individual occurs from an unfertilized egg. Automixis is a form of thelytoky, but there are different kinds of automixis. The kind of automixis relevant here is one in which two haploid products from the same meiosis combine to form a diploid zygote.

Cape honey bee workers expressing the thelytoky phenotype can produce progeny by automictic thelytoky with central fusion (see diagram). [12] Central fusion allows heterozygosity to be largely maintained. The oocytes that undergo automixis display a greater than 10-fold reduction in the rate of crossover recombination. [12] The low recombination rate in automictic oocytes favors maintenance of heterozygosity and the avoidance of inbreeding depression.

Impact on other animals

Although the Cape honey bee is regarded as being less aggressive than the African honey bee (A.m. scutellata) it can still be dangerous to people and other animals especially if the bees swarm and become defensive. [3] [13] In 2021 a group of sixty African penguins were killed by Cape honey bees in a very rare incidence of the penguins coming into contact with a local hive. [13]

Conservation status

Dead Cape honey bees piled up outside the entrance of a hive in the Groote Winterhoek mountains Cape Honeybee death.jpg
Dead Cape honey bees piled up outside the entrance of a hive in the Groote Winterhoek mountains

Although the species is officially classified as "not threatened" concerns exist that the subspecies might be declining in its natural range in the Western Cape. Threats to the subspecies include reduced access to flowering plants for forage, disease, parasites, and the use of pesticides and insecticides. [14]

In December 2008 American foulbrood disease spread to the Cape honey bee population in the Western Cape infecting and wiping out an estimated forty percent of the region's honey bee population by 2015. [15]

Over 300 hives were destroyed and more hives threatened with starvation in 2017 when large fires swept through the Knysna area of the Western Cape. Due to the impact of the fires on the bee's already threatened status resources were donated to set up additional hive stands and basil and borage after the fire to provide food to the bees. [16] Additional fires, at the same time, in the Thornhill area (near Port Elizabeth) destroyed a further 700 hives.

The use of pesticides by the agricultural sector is suspected of being responsible for at least one large incident of large scale hive death with an estimated 100 hives killed off on Constantia wine farms. [17]

South African non-profit Honeybee Heroes' Adopt-A-Hive initiative is a conservation project for the Cape honey bee. [18] Currently the organisation maintains over 700 honey bee hives dedicated to improving the population numbers of the Cape honey bee in the Western Cape. [19]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hymenoptera</span> Order of insects comprising sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants

Hymenoptera is a large order of insects, comprising the sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants. Over 150,000 living species of Hymenoptera have been described, in addition to over 2,000 extinct ones. Many of the species are parasitic. Females typically have a special ovipositor for inserting eggs into hosts or places that are otherwise inaccessible. This ovipositor is often modified into a stinger. The young develop through holometabolism —that is, they have a wormlike larval stage and an inactive pupal stage before they mature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Honey bee</span> Colonial flying insect of genus Apis

A honey bee is a eusocial flying insect within the genus Apis of the bee clade, all native to mainland Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current cosmopolitan distribution of honey bees, introducing multiple subspecies into South America, North America, and Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Africanized bee</span> Hybrid species of bee

The Africanized bee, also known as the Africanized honey bee and colloquially as the "killer bee", is a hybrid of the western honey bee, produced originally by crossbreeding of the East African lowland honey bee (A. m. scutellata) with various European honey bee subspecies such as the Italian honey bee (A. m. ligustica) and the Iberian honey bee (A. m. iberiensis).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beekeeping</span> Human care of honey bees

Beekeeping is the maintenance of bee colonies, commonly in man-made beehives. Honey bees in the genus Apis are the most commonly kept species but other honey producing bees such as Melipona stingless bees are also kept. Beekeepers keep bees to collect honey and other products of the hive: beeswax, propolis, bee pollen, and royal jelly. Other sources of beekeeping income include pollination of crops, raising queens, and production of package bees for sale. Bee hives are kept in an apiary or "bee yard".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Honey bee life cycle</span> Life cycle of Apis mellifera

The honey bee life cycle, here referring exclusively to the domesticated Western honey bee, depends greatly on their social structure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Queen bee</span> Egg-laying individual in a bee colony

A queen bee is typically an adult, mated female (gyne) that lives in a colony or hive of honey bees. With fully developed reproductive organs, the queen is usually the mother of most, if not all, of the bees in the beehive. Queens are developed from larvae selected by worker bees and specially fed in order to become sexually mature. There is normally only one adult, mated queen in a hive, in which case the bees will usually follow and fiercely protect her.

Within biological taxonomy, a honey bee race would be an informal rank in the taxonomic hierarchy, below the level of subspecies. It has been used as a higher rank than strain, with several strains making up one race. Therefore, a strain is a lower-level taxonomic rank used at the intraspecific level within a race of a subspecies. Strains are often seen as inherently artificial concepts, more usually within biology as characterized by a specific intent for genetic isolation, however, within beekeeping circles, strain is more likely to be used to describe very minor differences throughout the same subspecies, such as the color ranges of A. m. carnica from brown to grey. Within A. m. ligustica there are two races, the darker leather brown northern Italian bee from the Ligurian Alps region which was discovered to be resistant to acarine in the 1900s, while the other Italian bee race, from regions near Bologna and further south, was highly susceptible to acarine and within this race there are two color strains, the traditional Italian yellow and a rarer all-golden color.

Nosema apis is a microsporidian, a small, unicellular parasite recently reclassified as a fungus that mainly affects honey bees. It causes nosemosis, also called nosema, which is the most common and widespread of adult honey bee diseases. The dormant stage of N. apis is a long-lived spore which is resistant to temperature extremes and dehydration, and cannot be killed by freezing the contaminated comb. Nosemosis is a listed disease with the Office International des Epizooties (OIE).

<i>Varroa destructor</i> Species of mite

Varroa destructor, the Varroa mite, is an external parasitic mite that attacks and feeds on honey bees and is one of the most damaging honey bee pests in the world. A significant mite infestation leads to the death of a honey bee colony, usually in the late autumn through early spring. Without management for Varroa mite, honey bee colonies typically collapse within 2 to 3 years in temperate climates. These mites can infest Apis mellifera, the western honey bee, and Apis cerana, the Asian honey bee. Due to very similar physical characteristics, this species was thought to be the closely related Varroa jacobsoni prior to 2000, but they were found to be two separate species after DNA analysis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swarming (honey bee)</span> Reproduction method of honeybee colonies

Swarming is a honey bee colony's natural means of reproduction. In the process of swarming, a single colony splits into two or more distinct colonies.

<i>Apis florea</i> Species of bee

The dwarf honey bee, Apis florea, is one of two species of small, wild honey bees of southern and southeastern Asia. It has a much wider distribution than its sister species, Apis andreniformis. First identified in the late 18th century, Apis florea is unique for its morphology, foraging behavior and defensive mechanisms like making a piping noise. Apis florea have open nests and small colonies, which makes them more susceptible to predation than cavity nesters with large numbers of defensive workers. These honey bees are important pollinators and therefore commodified in countries like Cambodia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thelytoky</span> Type of parthenogenesis in which females are produced from unfertilized eggs

Thelytoky is a type of parthenogenesis and is the absence of mating and subsequent production of all female diploid offspring as for example in aphids. Thelytokous parthenogenesis is rare among animals and reported in about 1,500 species, about 1 in 1000 of described animal species, according to a 1984 study. It is more common in invertebrates, like arthropods, but it can occur in vertebrates, including salamanders, fish, and reptiles such as some whiptail lizards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">East African lowland honey bee</span> Subspecies of honey bee native to Africa

The East African lowland honey bee is a subspecies of the western honey bee. It is native to central, southern and eastern Africa, though at the southern extreme it is replaced by the Cape honey bee. This subspecies has been determined to constitute one part of the ancestry of the Africanized bees spreading through North and South America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western honey bee</span> European honey bee

The western honey bee or European honey bee is the most common of the 7–12 species of honey bees worldwide. The genus name Apis is Latin for "bee", and mellifera is the Latin for "honey-bearing" or "honey carrying", referring to the species' production of honey.

Apis mellifera iberiensis, or the Spanish bee, is a western honey bee subspecies native to the Iberian Peninsula. It is also found on the Balearic Islands.

<i>Apis cerana</i> Species of insect

Apis cerana, the eastern honey bee, Asiatic honey bee or Asian honey bee, is a species of honey bee native to South, Southeast and East Asia. This species is the sister species of Apis koschevnikovi and both are in the same subgenus as the western (European) honey bee, Apis mellifera. A. cerana is known to live sympatrically along with Apis koschevnikovi within the same geographic location. Apis cerana colonies are known for building nests consisting of multiple combs in cavities containing a small entrance, presumably for defense against invasion by individuals of another nest. The diet of this honey bee species consists mostly of pollen and nectar, or honey. Moreover, Apis cerana is known for its highly social behavior, reflective of its classification as a type of honey bee.

<i>Apocephalus borealis</i> Species of fly

Apocephalus borealis is a species of North American parasitoid phorid fly that attacks bumblebees, honey bees, and paper wasps. This parasitoid's genus Apocephalus is best known for the "decapitating flies" that attack a variety of ant species, though A. borealis attacks and alters the behavior of bees and wasps. These flies are colloquially known as zombie flies and the bees they infect are colloquially known as zombees. Association with honey bees has so far only been documented from California, South Dakota, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Vermont.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Honeybee Heroes</span> Nonprofit organisation based in South Africa

Honeybee Heroes in a honeybee sanctuary and beekeeper education non-profit organisation founded in 2020 by Chris Oosthuizen in the Overberg region of South Africa.

Apis mellifera adansonii(Western African bee) is a subspecies of the Western honey bee with probably the largest range of Apis mellifera in Africa, belonging to the A (Africa) Lineage of honey bees. Originally identified by Michael Adansonin in his Histoire naturelle du Seneegal in 1757. Initially the name adsansonii was misapplied to A. m. scutelleta and in particular to the Africanised bees of South America.

References

  1. ↑ Joanna Klein (9 June 2016). "Scientists Find Genes That Let These Bees Reproduce Without Males". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 June 2017.
  2. ↑ Lattorff, H.M. G., Mortiz, R.F.A. and Fuchs, S. 2005. A single locus determines thelytokous parthenogenesis of laying honeybee workers (Apis mellifera capensis). Heredity. 94: 533–537.
  3. 1 2 "Honeybees of South Africa | SABIO". www.sabio.org.za. Retrieved 2021-09-27.
  4. ↑ Hepburn, R. (2001). "The enigmatic Cape honey bee, Apis mellifera capensis". Bee World. Vol. 82. pp. 81–191.
  5. ↑ Hamilton, W.D. (1964). "Genetic evolution of social behavior, [part] I". Journal of Theoretical Biology . 7 (1): 1–16. doi:10.1016/0022-5193(64)90038-4. PMID   5875341.
  6. ↑ Hepburn, H.R.; Allsopp, M.H. "Reproductive conflict between honeybees – usurpation of Apis mellifera scutellata colonies by Apis mellifera capensis". South African Journal of Science . 90: 247–249.
  7. ↑ Neumann, Peter; Hepburn, Randall (2002). "Behavioural basis for social parasitism of Cape honeybees ( Apis mellifera capensis )". Apidologie. 33 (2): 165–192. doi: 10.1051/apido:2002008 . ISSN   0044-8435.
  8. ↑ Pirk, C. W. W. (2003-05-01). "Cape honeybees, Apis mellifera capensis, police worker-laid eggs despite the absence of relatedness benefits". Behavioral Ecology. 14 (3): 347–352. doi: 10.1093/beheco/14.3.347 .
  9. ↑ Moritz, Robin F. A.; Pirk, Christian W. W.; Hepburn, H. Randall; Neumann, Peter (2008). "Short-sighted evolution of virulence in parasitic honeybee workers (Apis mellifera capensis Esch.)". Naturwissenschaften. 95 (6): 507–513. doi:10.1007/s00114-008-0351-6. hdl: 2263/9996 . ISSN   0028-1042.
  10. ↑ Wossler, T.C. (2002). "Pheromone mimicry by Apis mellifera capensis social parasites leads to reproductive anarchy in host Apis mellifera scutellata colonies". Apidologie. 33 (2): 139–163. doi: 10.1051/apido:2002006 .
  11. ↑ Martin, S.J.; Beekman, M.; Wossler, T.C.; Ratnieks, F.L.W. (2002). "Parasitic cape honeybee workers, Apis mellifera capensis, evade policing". Nature . 415 (6868): 163–165. doi:10.1038/415163a. PMID   11805832. S2CID   4411884.
  12. 1 2 Baudry E, Kryger P, Allsopp M, Koeniger N, Vautrin D, Mougel F, Cornuet JM, Solignac M (2004). "Whole-genome scan in thelytokous-laying workers of the Cape honeybee (Apis mellifera capensis): central fusion, reduced recombination rates and centromere mapping using half-tetrad analysis". Genetics. 167 (1): 243–52. doi:10.1534/genetics.167.1.243. PMC   1470879 . PMID   15166151.
  13. 1 2 Evans, Julia (2021-09-24). "OUR BURNING PLANET: Penguins killed by bees highlights a deeper conservation issue". Daily Maverick. Retrieved 2021-09-24.
  14. ↑ "Cape honeybee". SANBI. Retrieved 2021-09-24.
  15. ↑ Wossler, Theresa (31 July 2015). "The American disease that's wreaking havoc on South Africa's honeybee population". Quartz. Retrieved 2 August 2015.
  16. ↑ "R250k put aside for Knysna's destroyed beehives". News24. Retrieved 2017-06-22.
  17. ↑ Folb, Luke (25 November 2018). "Cape Town beekeepers uncover reasons for mass killing | Weekend Argus". Weekend Argus. Retrieved 2018-11-25.
  18. ↑ Selig, SarahBelle. "Western Cape residents warned about bee removal scammers". News24. Retrieved 2023-03-04.
  19. ↑ "The Art of Good Honey... and Helping Bees Thrive in South Africa!". Good Things Guy. 2021-04-29. Retrieved 2023-03-04.
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