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Don't give the honey for your baby

Feeding honey to your baby could be harmful if he or she is younger than 12 months of age. Honey could be the cause of a rare type of food poisoning called infant botulism--a serious, even deadly, illness. Honey is the food most commonly found to contain the bacteria causing botulism. The American Academy of Pediatrics advises that honey should not be added to the food, water, or formula that is fed to infants younger than 12 months of age. This recommendation includes foods processed with honey.

Honey is a known source of bacterial spores called Clostridium botulinum that produce a toxin which can cause infant botulism. These spores can also be found in soil, water, uncooked food, and even household dust. Infant botulism can occur from breathing in vacuum cleaner dust, but eating honey is the number one preventable cause. While honey is safe for infants over 12 months of age, infants under 12 months of age have not yet developed beneficial bacteria in their digestive tracts that can control botulism spores. Therefore, do not add honey to baby food, water, formula, or medicine. Do not dip a baby's pacifier in honey. Even the honey in some processed foods can cause this problem. After an infant eats the spores of this bacteria, the disease can occur within a few hours or up to a week after the exposure.
Symptoms of infant botulism include weakness in the neck, arms, or legs; inability to suck or cry normally; inability to feed or swallow; and persistent constipation. The first symptom is constipation, which can appear three to 30 days following ingestion of honey. The next symptoms observed are listlessness, decreased appetite, and a weakened cry over the next several days. Gagging and sucking reflexes diminish and the child moves less and less. Infant botulism frequently causes an infant to have an unusual breathing pattern, which often requires putting the infant on a ventilator to help with breathing.
Most infants recover from botulism with hospital care. However, if infant botulism is not treated immediately, it could result in death. Hospital care is necessary. Identifying the botulism toxin in the stool is needed for proper diagnosis. This toxin can cause nerve damage for weeks or even months. Neither antibiotics nor antitoxin have proven beneficial in treating infant botulism and may even make the illness worse. There is also a link between infant botulism and SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome), because breathing is affected in the most severe stages of the illness. It is believed to be the cause of death in 10% of SIDS cases. As children get older, the stomach acid, bacteria, and the intestinal tract mature to make them less susceptible to the toxins that botulism spores produce. The single most effective way to prevent infant botulism is to avoid giving honey to infants younger than 12 months of age.

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Killer bees

"Killer bees" is usually a colloquial reference to the africanized bee, and it also may refer to:
* Killer bees (business), firms or individuals employed by a target company to fend off a takeover bid

Killer Bees may refer to:
* Killer Bees!, a video game for the Magnavox Odyssey
* The Killer Bees (SNL), a recurring sketch on the American comedy program Saturday Night Live
* The Killer Bees (professional wrestling), a professional wrestling tag team
* Killer Bees (film), a 1974 television movie featuring Gloria Swanson
* Killer Bees! (film), a 2002 television movie featuring Fiona Loewi
* Killer Bees (Texas Senate), a group of Texas senators, including Glenn Kothmann, who in 1979 went into hiding to prevent a quorum
* The Killer Bees (band), an American funk/soul/rock band co-founded by Papa Mali
* Killer Bee codename for Cammy White, a Street Fighter character.
See also:
* The Killer B's, a collective nickname for Derek Bell, Craig Biggio, and Jeff Bagwell for the Houston Astros in the 1990s whose last names started with B
* The Killer B's, a collective nickname for several starters for the Miami Dolphins defense in the 1980s whose last names started with B
* Killa Bees, a collective nickname for affiliates of the Wu-Tang Clan
* Attack of the Killer B's, a compilation album by Anthrax

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Propolis Anti-Cancer

Brazilian bee propolis has significant and varied anti-cancer benefits, some of which will surprise many orthodox experts. Overall, research has indicated benefits in each of the following areas of the cancer process:

• Anti-inflammatory
• Anti-viral; anti-yeast (candida albicans)
• Wound Healing
• Immune stimulant
• Free radical scavenging
• DNA protection
• Anti-tumour effect
• Cancer cell death
• Anti-metastatic activity.
  

Furthermore, it has been shown to enhance the benefits of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, having a protective effect on healthy cells and an enhancing effect on chemotherapy action.

(i) Anti-inflammatory action

Inflammation is a usual precursor to cancer and may be caused by a number of factors such as eicosanoids (e.g. Prostaglandins), cytokines (e.g. leukotrines), quinines, free radicals histamines and serotonin. Propolis has been shown to inhibit prostaglandin, leucotrine and histamine release. (Khayyal et al 1993; Mirzoeva and Calder 1996; Hepsen et al 1999. Indeed all these inflammatory conditions have been suppressed in clinical studies - and in each case the response was as good as the recommended prescription drug (Menezes et al 1999). Propolis was even found to overcome formaldehyde induced arthritis. Typical active ingredients were the flavenoid hesperidins (Hata and Beyer 2004).

(ii) Anti-viral; anti-yeast

Various research studies have confirmed bee propolis effectiveness against all the principle strains of Staphylococcus, Escherichia coli, salmonella, E coli, candida albicans and even HIV. A number of flavenoids seem particularly important, especially kaempferol, pinocembrin and galangine. Again controls were taken using prescription drugs such as AZT the anti-AIDS drug. Moronic acid in propolis had significant anti-HIV effect, out-scoring the AZT drug.

(iii) Wound Healing

Propolis has been found to have antiseptic, anaesthetic and healing powers. It has been shown to have a healing effect in the tissue repair of oral mucosa (Bretz et al 1998) - hence the use of Menuka by Christie Hospital. It is also effective as a 5 per cent mouthwash after dental surgery (Carvahlo 1994). Post operative wounds - for example after cancer surgery - in subcutaneous tissues were more quickly healed with a compress of propolis, honey and comfrey ointment (Magro-Filho 1987).

(iv) Immune Stimulant

The ester of caffeic acid (CAPE) is one of the main active compounds of propolis, along with the flavenoid ingredients Quercitin and Hesperidine. They seem to have two actions. Firstly, they seem to inhibit cellular growth and secondly, they can increase the presence of certain white immune cells like T-lymphocytes, increasing hydrogen peroxide production without any simultaneous and damaging nitrite production, which usually occurs with macrophage activity. (Than et al 2003; Ansorge et al 2003)

(v) Free Radical Scavenging

Flavenoids are known to have powerful antioxidant benefits. Matsushige et al 1996 isolated a compound from propolis to show that it had a stronger antioxidant benefit that vitamins C and E. The Brazilian propolis seems to have stronger antioxidant powers than those of China, Peru and Holland. The antioxidant capacity can prevent the free radicals acting on the cell lipids, proteins and even the DNA.

(vi) DNA Protection
CAPE - even when used in low doses - can prevent cellular mistakes in healthy cells and induce apoptosis (cell death) in cancer cells. Thus it seems to have a double benefit of protecting healthy cells whilst killing cancer cells. (Chen et al 2003)
Fitzpatrick et al (2001) also showed that propolis could protect healthy DNA and restrict macrophage activity. This selective effect was also shown by Su et al 1995.
(vii) Anti-tumour effect
The ability to protect healthy DNA was confirmed by Banskota et al 2001, and by Suzuki et al, in 2002. They both also noted that propolis had anti-tumour activity. The ability to kill cancer cells has been shown both in vitro and in animal in vivo studies. The particular ingredient responsible is Artepillin C, which leads to cancer cells’ DNA fragmentation (Kimoto et al 1998). Kimoto has also shown that intra-tumoural injections of 500 mgs of Artepillin C produced apoptosis and an increase in immune defenses.
CAPE and another 20 ingredients of propolis were tested by Nagaoka et al 2002. 4 were found to cause cancer cell death. Where CAPE was taken orally by mice with lung tumours, a reduction of tumour size of 50 per cent was noted. Researchers similarly tested another group of mice using the drug cisplatine. No difference in effectiveness was noted, but the mice taking the drug had significant weight loss, a side-effect not noted with propolis (Nagaoka et al 2003). It was concluded that CAPE had a cytoxic effect, and could also block the invasive, metastasis noted with these tumours.
(viii) Enhancement of orthodox chemotherapy approaches
Propolis has biological effects that act in synergy with chemotherapy drugs such as 5-fluorouracil (Suzuki et al 2002).Importantly Santos and Cruz 2001 showed that the antioxidant properties of propolis could reduce the side effects caused by chemotherapy drugs without any detriment to the therapeutic effects.
Suzuki researched two drugs in experiments with mice and cancer (mitomicine C and 5- fluoresce) and showed that the combination of drug plus propolis had by far the greatest regression effects especially in advanced stages, over the drugs used on their own. The propolis usage resulted in higher levels of white and red cells and less side effects. The conclusion of the research was that propolis increased the bio-availability of the drugs. The desired effect could therefore logically be achieved on smaller doses and with even less side effects.
Orsolic and Basic (2005) used mice with breast tumours to show antioxidants can enhance the performance of both radiotherapy and chemotherapy, by using water soluble bee propolis. This supports the work of Chan noted above, that CAPE has a cytoxic effect and can cause cell death, whilst protecting the DNA of healthy cells. ‘Chemotherapy agents used in anti-metastatic activity have their benefits enhanced’. was again the conclusion. The authors recommended clinical trials should take place as all the indications were for greater effect in radio and chemotherapy, whilst minimising blood cell declines and other side effects.
Padmavathi et al (2005) studied the drug paclitaxel with propolis, in DMBA-induced mice breast cancer and concluded that the two combined suppressed breast cancer, decreased lipid peroxidation, and increased the activities of antioxidant enhanced super oxide dismutase and vitamin C. They concluded that the combination of paclitaxel and propolis offers maximum effect in DMBA-induced breast cancer

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Therapy of the bee sting

This is hard on the bee, but very good for some patients who are willing to try it!

What is bee venom therapy?

If you've ever been stung by a bee, you already have firsthand experience of the basics of bee-venom therapy (also called apitherapy). The only technical difference between the sting you got and the therapeutic kind is that yours was probably accidental.

People who use bee venom for medicinal purposes don't wait around for random insect attacks. Using long tweezers, they pick up live honey bees (which they've usually raised themselves), put the insects next to their skin, and let them do what comes naturally. You might have thought that your single encounter with a bee was enough, but people undergoing apitherapy may get stung 80 times a day or more.

Why would anyone subject himself to such pain? Because bee stings are thought to help ease the symptoms of a wide variety of diseases, including arthritis, multiple sclerosis, tendonitis, and fibromyalgia; they're also thought to promote desensitization to bee stings. These claims don't come from beekeepers looking for a profit; they're made by patients whose experience with bee venom has turned them into believers. One woman says that 80 stings every other day helped reverse her rheumatoid arthritis. A woman with multiple sclerosis found that the leg spasms she'd been having calmed down after she started using bees to sting herself a few times each day.

Some doctors, particularly in Eastern Europe, have reported using injections of bee venom to successfully treat rheumatoid arthritis.

Does bee-venom therapy really work?
Personal testimonials are one thing, but careful scientific studies are the real test. And so far, studies conducted on animals and in test tubes suggest that bee venom may have some ability to lessen the pain and inflammation of arthritis. In 1988, researchers at the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki in Greece reported that bee stings greatly slowed the progress of an arthritis-like disease in rats. The Greek scientists, along with researchers at Montreal General Hospital, have also reported that venom slows the production of interleukin-1, a compound that helps fuel arthritic pain and inflammation. More recent studies in South Korea have revealed how melittin – an important compound in bee venom – blocks inflammation. Their study showed significant anti-arthritic effects in mice.
But although some research suggests that bee venom given by injection may be effective in treating tendonitis, fibromyositis, and rheumatoid arthritis, among other conditions, the results are not conclusive. Human trials on bee venom and arthritis, for example, have been few and far between, and the results haven't been encouraging. Back in 1941 (did we mention the investigations were few and far between?), a study published in the American Journal of Medical Sciences found that arthritis patients who got infections of bee venom didn't improve any faster than other patients. The lead researcher called the results "very discouraging," and no human trial since has led to a different conclusion. With the recent arrival of several effective drugs for both osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, research on bee venom as an arthritis remedy has slowed to a trickle, and we may never be sure whether many stings are better than no stings at all.
When it comes to multiple sclerosis, the picture is still hazier. Nobody knows how bee venom affects the disease in humans, and studies on laboratory animals have only just begun. One very small human study was published in 2005 in the journal Neurology, but scientists concluded that bee sting therapy “did not reduce disease activity, disability, or fatigue and did not improve quality of life.” Researchers at M.C.P. Hahnemann University in Philadelphia recently started giving bee venom to mice with a disease similar to MS. The preliminary results suggest that the venom doesn't diminish any MS symptoms in mice; in fact, some of the mice treated with bee venom displayed symptoms more severe than those of mice that got no treatment at all.
Claims that bee venom can ameliorate other diseases, including fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, and depression, are based entirely on personal observation and not on science.
Is bee-venom therapy dangerous?
The benefits of this therapy are still uncertain, but the dangers are clear. Approximately 2 percent of people have allergic reactions to stings from bees and wasps. A severe reaction after just only three or four bee stings is extremely rare, but the danger grows with the number of stings. (Beekeepers and their families in particular are likely to be highly sensitive to bee venom). A person who's having a severe reaction to a bee sting may develop hives on the skin and swelling around the eyes, lips, throat, and tongue. He or she may vomit, slur spoken words, show signs of mental confusion, and even struggle to breathe. Soon the person may lose consciousness. These are signs of anaphylactic shock, a condition that can be fatal if not treated quickly. If you notice these signs, call 911 right away.
Anyone undergoing bee-venom therapy should have a bee sting kit handy. The kit includes a syringe and a dose of epinephrine (also known as adrenaline), a drug that can save your life if you go into anaphylactic shock. It's also a good idea for a beginner get a single "test sting" on the knee or forearm before undergoing a full bee barrage. But remember, the fact that your body tolerated the first 49 stings doesn't automatically mean it can handle the 50th.
-- Chris Woolston, M.S., is a health and medical writer with a master's degree in biology. He is a contributing editor at Consumer Health Interactive, and was the staff writer at Hippocrates, a magazine for physicians. He has also covered science issues for Time Inc. Health, WebMD, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. His reporting on occupational health earned him an award from the northern California Society of Professional Journalists.


A health care practitioner in Taiwan has used 6,000 honey bees delivering 200 stings a week to a woman with multiple sclerosis (MS), an inflammation of the central nervous system that short circuits signals.
Not surprisingly, her red blood cell count increased and the woman, who had been bedridden, is seen in a video walking slowly to her car. The practitioner was a disbelieving executive in the textile industry until his arthritic wife turned to bee sting therapy to treat her arthritis. Used in a similar way to acupuncture, bee venom appears to deliver a specific anti-inflammatory agent, melittin, which has been used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) as well as to treat lyme disease. Both are destructive, inflammatory diseases affecting the joints with pain, stiffness and swelling. Melittin appears to reduce inflammation in a way similar to COX-2 inhibitors.
Apitherapy is the use of honeybee products such as honey, bee glue and royal jelly to cure illnesses, including shrinking tumors. However, these gentle giants may be in trouble. A large number of disappearing honeybees are experiencing colony collapse disorder around the world. A German study has found the bacteria in the guts of young bees mirrored the same genetic traits of genetically modified crops.

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Pleasure chemical controls bee dance

The dance bees use to communicate flower locations is controlled by a relative of the brain chemical that makes humans feel happy, researchers say.
After worker bees find a location rich with flowers, they fly back to their hive and report the find to other bees using a series of gyrations. Their dance tells other bees the direction and distance to the flowers and the quality of the patch. But until now, the brain chemistry underlying the dance remained a mystery.
A joint U.S. and Australian study published today in the U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that a brain chemical called optopamine, closely related to the human reward and pleasure regulator dopamine, controls the bees' judgment and expression of the patches' quality.
"[This study] is the first step in exploring the neural basis of dance behaviour," said lead author Andrew Barron from the Australian National University in Canberra. "It sets the stage for mining deeper into the neural mechanisms."
The 'waggle dance' that the bee performs is a small figure-of-eight pattern. First, the bee runs forward, while shaking its wings and thorax. This is known as the 'waggle phase'. The bee then turns left and runs back to the starting point. Again the bee goes through the waggle phase, this time turning right to return to its starting point.
The bee's speed and vigour during the dance, as well as the number of times the figure-of-eight is performed, conveys the quality and location of the flower patch.
In the study, optopamine was given to North American and Australian bees either orally or by painting it directly onto their thoraxes. To analyse the effect on their dances, the researchers filmed the bees from the time they returned to their hive and played the footage back frame by frame.

Returning from the same patch, bees that had been given optopamine waggled more vigorously (indicating better patch quality) than bees who had not received the chemical, reported the paper.
As a result of the findings, Barron and his colleagues now believe that a reward system similar to the system found in mammalian brains must exist in honey bees.
In all mammals, including humans, when a reward stimulus such as food, safety or sexual gratification is experienced, the nerve cells in the middle of the brain release the chemical dopamine. The release of dopamine acts to reinforce the behaviour that led to the reward stimulus, helping the brain learn which actions are beneficial.
Some narcotics produce a pleasurable sensation by artificially stimulating the release of dopamine. The cravings associated with drug abuse can be caused by the brain learning to seek out this artificial dopamine release and the high that goes with it.
According to Barron's theory, optopamine controls learning of reward in honey bees in the same way. If he's right, honey bees may one day become test subjects for studies on drugs with the potential for abuse. The source

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Communication Within the Honey Bee Colony

Learning is essential for efficient foraging. Bees are unlikely to make many repeat visits if a plant provides little in the way of reward. A single bee will visit different flowers in the morning and, if there is sufficient attraction and reward in a particular kind of flower, she will make visits to that type of flower for most of the day, unless the plants stop producing reward or weather conditions change. Bees are quite adept at associative learning, and many of the standard phenomena of conditioning take the same form in bees as they do in the vertebrates that are the more usual subjects of such experiments.

Honey bees can perform learning tasks that go beyond simple conditioning. Foragers were trained to enter a simple Y-shaped maze that had been marked at the entrance with a particular color. Inside the maze was a branching point where the bee was required to choose between two paths. One path, which led to the food reward, was marked with the same color that had been used at the entrance to the maze, while the other was marked with a different color. Foragers learned to choose the correct path, and continued to do so when a different kind of marker (black and white stripes oriented in various directions) was substituted for the colored markers. When the experimental conditions were reversed, rewarding bees for choosing the inner passage marked with a symbol that was different from the entrance symbol, the bees again learned to choose the correct path. Extending the length of the tunnel to increase the time between seeing the one marker indicating the correct path and a second marker identifying the correct path show that the bees can retain the information in their visual working memory for about 5 seconds, equivalent to the short-term memory of birds
Honey bees are an excellent animal to study with regards to behavior because they are abundant and familiar to most people. An animal that is disregarded every day has very specific behaviors that go unnoticed by the normal person. Karl von Frisch studied the behavior of honey bees with regards to communication and was awarded the Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine in 1973. Von Frisch noticed that honey bees communicate with the language of dance. Honey bees are able to direct other bees to food sources through the round dance and the waggle dance. The round dance tells the other foragers that food is within 50 meters of the hive, but it does not provide much information regarding direction. The waggle dance, which may be vertical or horizontal, provides more detail about both the distance and the direction of the located food source. It is also hypothesized that the bees rely on their olfactory sense to help locate the food source once the foragers are given directions from the dances.Another signal for communication is the shaking signal, also known as the jerking dance, vibration dance, or vibration signal. It is a modulatory communication signal because it appears to manipulate the overall arousal or activity of behaviors. The shaking signal is most common in worker communication, but it is also evident in reproductive swarming. A worker bee vibrates its body dorsoventrally while holding another honey bee with its front legs. Jacobus Biesmeijer examined the incidence of shaking signals in a forager’s life and the conditions that led to its performance to investigate why the shaking signal is used in communication for food sources. Biesmeijer found that the experienced foragers executed 92.1% of the observed shaking signals. He also observed that 64% of the shaking signals were executed by experienced foragers after they had discovered a food source. About 71% of the shaking signal sessions occurred after the first five foraging success within one day. Then other communication signals, such as the waggle dance, were performed more often after the first five successes. Biesmeijer proved that most shakers are foragers and that the shaking signal is most often executed by foraging bees over pre-foraging bees. Beismeijer concluded that the shaking signal presents the overall message of transfer work for various activities or activity levels. Sometimes the signal serves to increase activity, when bees shake inactive bees. At other times, the signal serves as an inhibitory mechanism such as the shaking signal at the end of the day. However, the shaking signal is preferentially directed towards inactive bees. All three types of communication between honey bees are effective in their jobs with regards to foraging and task managing.
"The general story of the communication of the distance, the situation, and the direction of a food source by the dances of the returning (honey bee) worker bee on the vertical comb of the hive, has been known in general outline from the work of Karl von Frisch in the middle 1950s."
Dance language : It has long been known that honeybees perform a dance on their return to the hive, known as bee dance or waggle dance. The nectar-laden bee dances on the comb in a circular pattern, occasionally crossing the circle in a zig-zag or waggle pattern. Aristotle in 330 B.C. described this behaviour in his Historia Animalium. It was thought to attract the attention of other bees. In 1947, Karl von Frisch correlated the runs and turns of the dance to the distance and direction of the food source from the hive. The orientation of the dance correlates to the relative position of the sun. There is no evidence that this form of communication depends on individual learning. Von Frisch performed a series of experiments to validate his theory. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973 for his discoveries.

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What is Propolis?

Propolis is a resinous mixture that bees collect from tree buds, sap flows, or other botanical sources. It is used as a sealant for unwanted open spaces in the hive. Propolis is used for small gaps (approximately 6.35 millimeters (0.3 in) or less), while larger spaces are usually filled with beeswax. Its color varies depending on its botanical source, the most common being dark brown. Propolis is sticky at and above room temperature. At lower temperatures it becomes hard and very brittle. For centuries, beekeepers assumed that bees sealed the beehive with propolis to protect the colony from the elements, such as rain and cold winter drafts. However, 20th century research has revealed that bees not only survive, but also thrive, with increased ventilation during the winter months throughout most temperate regions of the world.

Composition : The composition of propolis will vary from hive to hive, district to district, and from season to season. Normally it is dark brown in color, but it can be found in green, red, black and white hues, depending on the sources of resin found in the particular hive area. Honey bees are opportunists, and will gather what they need from available sources, and detailed analyses show that propolis chemical composition varies considerably from region to region, along with the vegetation. In northern temperate climates, for example, bees collect resins from trees, such as poplars and conifers (the biological role of resin in trees is to seal wounds and defend against bacteria, fungi and insects). Poplar resin is rich in flavanoids. "Typical" northern temperate propolis has approximately 50 constituents, primarily resins and vegetable balsams (50%), waxes (30%), essential oils (10%), and pollen (5%). In neotropical regions, in additional to a large variety of trees, bees may also gather resin from flowers in the genera Clusia and Dalechampia, which are the only known plant genera that produce floral resins to attract pollinators. Clusia resin contains polyprenylated benzophenones. In some areas of Chile, propolis contains viscidone, a terpene from Baccharis shrubs, and in Brazil, naphthoquinone epoxide has recently isolated from red propolis, and prenylated acids such as 4-hydroxy-3,5-diprenyl cinnamic acid have been documented. An analysis of propolis from Henan, China found sinapic acid, isoferulic acid, caffeic acid and chrysin, with the first three compounds demonstrating anti-bacterial properties. Occasionally worker bees will even gather various caulking compounds of human manufacture, when the usual sources are more difficult to obtain. The properties of the propolis depend on the exact sources used by each individual hive, therefore any potential medicinal properties that may be present in one hive's propolis may be absent from another's, and the distributors of propolis products cannot control such factors. This may account for the many and varied claims regarding medicinal properties, and the difficulty in replicating previous scientific studies investigating these claims. Even propolis samples taken from within a single colony can vary, making controlled clinical tests difficult, and the results of any given study cannot be reliably extrapolated to propolis samples from other areas.

Propolis is now believed to:
1.reinforce the structural stability of the hive
2.reduce vibration
3.make the hive more defensible by sealing alternate entrances
4.prevent diseases and parasites from entering the hive

5.prevent putrefaction within the hive. Bees usually carry waste out of and away from the hive. However if a small lizard or mouse, for example, found its way into the hive and died there, bees may be unable to carry it out through the hive entrance. In that case, they would attempt instead to seal the carcass in propolis, essentially mummifying it and making it odorless and harmless. Propolis has been around for over 40 million years and has been used by man both internally and externally even before the time of Christ as a healing agent. Originated from the Greek word, "PRO", meaning "in defense of" and "POLIS" meaning "city", bee propolis extract is now considered an important part of dietetics and a natural cure by the World Health Organization.

To make simple, we can think of propolis as bees own medicine. It is a mixture of various amounts of resins collected by the honeybees from plants - particularly from flowers, leaf buds and the bark of trees. Carried on their back legs, bees use propolis as some sort of natural cement to strengthen and seal cracks in their hives. The question is, why do the bees use propolis when there are all sorts of natural glue available in nature? This is where it gets interesting.
The Need for Protection : Just imagine living in a super crowded apartment, sharing it with other 50,000 living beings. The apartment is so small, it's hard for you even to get in or out of your home. It's like making a crowded Tokyo subway your home. If you're living in such a tight space, you know that you need a strong structure to hold the busy units, but more importantly you also need a way to keep the whole apartment clean and free of bacteria. Just one "unclean" occupant can bring massive disease outbreak in the whole kingdom. This is what it feels like living in a bee hive. These bees must find a way to avoid bacterial and viral infection from spreading in their congested home. Without some kind of antibiotics protection, the whole colony could be dead.
Propolis as God sent Protection :Luckily for these bees, nature provides them with a solution. What they do is collect the substance that trees use to protect itself from infection and use it in their homes. Certain trees like poplar, willow, birch and horse chestnut produce a special antibiotic sap to protect it from infection. Bees gather these saps, took it back to their hives and coat their hives the with it, in much the same way we use to paint and caulk our home.It will seal, line and strengthen the hives. The best thing is that when they brush against these brownish substance, the honey bees become immunized.That special substance is what we now call propolis, a term coined by the Greek to mean "Defender of the City".
What’s in Bee Propolis? Chemically, propolis is exceedingly complex. Flavonoids are abundant in propolis. Apart from that you will also find kaempferol, apigenin, pinocembrin, galangin, luteolin, pinostrobin and quercitin, all of which are anti-inflammatory, antiallergenic, antioxidant and/or antimutagenic. Propolis is also rich in the caffeic acid phenethyl ester. This is a substance that was shown to inhibited cancer growth and reduced inflammation studies done to animals. Bee propolis also contains organic acids and their derivatives as well as terpenoids. These constituents contribute antibiotic, anti fungal and antiviral effects.
About Propolis Antibacterial and Antiviral Effects : There is an interesting difference between propolis's antibacterial property compared to an antibiotics. Antibiotics works by killing bacteria in our body, That includes those "friendly" ones needed by the body. Among the friendly bacteria killed by antibiotics are bacteria responsible in helping the body produce vitamins like B and K. The more antibiotics you use, the more friendly bacteria will you kill. At the end of the day, you might be deficient in those vitamins, not mentioning other vast side effects you will get from prolong use of antibiotics. On the other hand, propolis raise the body's natural resistance by stimulating one's own immune system. It will also add certain vitamin like B1, B, C, E and essential minerals including iron, aluminum, manganese and silicon to the body. Thus, scientist have tried to combine antibiotics and propolis to get the best of both worlds. They found that addition of propolis to antibiotics increases the effect of the drug from 10 to 100 folds.
Health benefits of Propolis : Although the fact that propolis has been used for thousands of years may be enough to convince people on propolis benefits, we dig scientific journals to satisfy some skeptics. Let's see how medical science conforms ancient wisdom.
Improving Immune System : Professor S. Scheller, the head of a team of four doctors at the Institute for Microbiology at the Medical Academy in Poland found that propolis is able to stimulate the immune system. It stimulates the formation of antibodies to build body resistance to many diseases. It also help the body in releasing substance against cellular deterioration. He also concluded that other propolis health benefits may include improved physical , intellectual and sexual performance and makes injured tissue heal faster. The study also found that propolis is non toxic.
Treat Burns : Another benefits of propolis is in treating second degree burns. Research showed that propolis cream gave about the same result as currently prescribed cream. However, propolis cream reduce patient's inflammation and lead to a faster healing. Various studies have confirmed that propolis stimulates enzyme systems, cell metabolism, circulation, collagen formation and improved healing of burn wounds. It is believe to be a result of a substance called arginine.
Increase Fertility : One isolated study had tested the benefit of propolis on women with infertility and endometriosis. The study indicated that consumption of 500mg of propolis twice daily resulted in pregnancy rate of 60% as opposed to 20% for women not given propolis. It is still unclear how propolis would give this effect.
Potential Cancer Drug : A report published in the Cancer Research (Sep 15,93;53 1482-88) stated that caffeic acids in propolis might help prevent colon cancer. The article described how these caffeic acids were able to prevent the formation of pre cancerous tissues in rats after the animal were exposed to cancer causing chemicals. Another study done in 1990 showed propolis chemicals to act against ovary cancer in hamster and sarcoma-type tumors in mice.

Bowel Problems : Propolis can also benefit patients suffering from inflammatory bowel problems like Chron's disease and ulceration colitis. In June 2001, Dr. Ralph Golan reported how ulceration colitis responded well to propolis therapy. This was reported in his article published in Townsend Letters For Doctors.
Dental care : Another benefit of bee propolis is in dental care. Propolis mouthwash used after an oral surgery appears to shorten the healing time. A study done in 1991 showed that rats given propolis in their drinking water got less caries compared to other rats. Another study done in 1986 proposed propolis as a valuable subsidiary treatment for gum infection and plague.
It is also used in dental surgery as natural and safe disinfectant.
Protecting Liver :Two studies done in 1986 and 1987 showed that another benefits of propolis is in protecting liver. It was shown to be effective in protecting liver against alcohol and tetrachloride.
Improve Antibiotic Effectiveness : Australian scientists, E.L Ghisalberti of the Department of Organic Chemistry at the University of Western Australia showed that propolis increases the effectiveness of penicillin or other antibiotics from 10 to 100 folds. The combination of these drugs and propolis can cause the drug dosage to be trimmed down. In conclusion, this discovery will will cause less side effects of antibiotics and lower the over dependency on antibiotics by doctors.
Veterinary Applications : Propolis offers some benefits to breeders by improving weight gain and reduce diarrhea in their animals. A study done in 1987 showed that 5 ml of propolis solution given to milk-fed calves archived the above results. Studies done to rabbits have also showed that propolis treated coccidiosis and eimeria. It also is beneficial in treating mastitis.
Other medical benefits of propolis : Studies done in rats and mice showed that concentrated propolis given to the animals reduces blood pressure, produces sedative effect, protects the liver and stomach against tetrachloride and ulcers. All these are achieved without any side effects.

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Pollen

Pollen is a fine to coarse powder consisting of microgametophytes (pollen grains), which produce the male gametes (sperm cells) of seed plants. A hard coat covering the pollen grain protects the sperm cells during the process of their movement between the stamens of the flower to the pistil of the next flower.

Bees collect pollen in the pollen basket and carry it back to the hive. In the hive, pollen is used as a protein source necessary during brood-rearing. In certain environments, excess pollen can be collected from the hives of A. mellifera and A. cerana. It is often eaten as a health supplement.

Grain of pollen: microscopic part produced by the anther that serves as the male agent of fertilization in flowering plants.
Thickening of cellulose: fibrous thickening.
Exine: outer layer of a pollen grain.
Intine: inner layer of a pollen grain.
Nucleoli: control centers of cellular activity.
Pore: small hole
The structure of pollen

Each pollen grain contains vegetative (non-reproductive) cells (only a single cell in most flowering plants but several in other seed plants) and a generative (reproductive) cell containing two nuclei: a tube nucleus (that produces the pollen tube) and a generative nucleus (that divides to form the two sperm cells). The group of cells is surrounded by a cellulose cell wall and a thick, tough outer wall made of sporopollenin.

Pollen is produced in the microsporangium (contained in the anther of an angiosperm flower, male cone of a coniferous plant, or male cone of other seed plants). Pollen grains come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and surface markings characteristic of the species (see Electron micrograph at top right). Most, but certainly not all, are spherical. Pollen grains of pines, firs, and spruces are winged. The smallest pollen grain, that of the Forget-me-not (Myosotis spp.), is around 6 µm (0.006 mm) in diameter. Wind-borne pollen grains can be as large as about 90-100 µm. The study of pollen is called palynology and is highly useful in paleoecology, paleontology, archeology, and forensics.

In angiosperms, during flower development the anther is composed of a mass of cells that appear undifferentiated, except for a partially differentiated dermis. As the flower develops, four groups of sporogenous cells form with in the anther, the fertile sporogenous cells are surrounded by layers of sterile cells that grow into the wall of the pollen sac, some of the cells grow into nutritive cells that supply nutrition for the microspores that form by meiotic division from the sporogenous cells. Four haploid microspores are produced from each diploid sporogenous cell called microsporocytes, after meiotic division. After the formation of the four microspores, which are contained by callose walls, the development of the pollen grain walls begins. The callose wall is broken down by an enzyme called callase and the freed pollen grains grow in size and develop their characteristic shape and form a resistant outer wall called the exine and an inner wall called the intine. The exine is made up of a resistant compound called sporopollenin; the intine is made up of cellulose and pectin. The exine is what is preserved in the fossil record.
Pollen grains may have furrows, the orientation of which (relative to the original tetrad of microspores) classify the pollen as colpate or sulcate. The number of furrows or pores helps classify the flowering plants, with eudicots having three colpi (tricolpate), and other groups having one sulcus.
Except in the case of some submerged aquatic plants, the mature pollen-grain has a double wall, a thin delicate wall of unaltered cellulose (the endospore or intine) and a tough outer cuticularized exospore or exine. The exine often bears spines or warts, or is variously sculptured, and the character of the markings is often of value for identifying genus, species, or even cultivar or individual. In some flowering plants, germination of the pollen grain often begins before it leaves the microsporangium, with the generative cell forming the two sperm cells.
Pollination
The transfer of pollen grains to the female reproductive structure (pistil in angiosperms) is called pollination. This transfer can be mediated by the wind, in which case the plant is described as anemophilous (literally wind-loving). Anemophilous plants typically produce great quantities of very lightweight pollen grains, sometimes with air-sacs. Non-flowering seed plants (e.g. pine trees) are characteristically anemophilous. Anemophilous flowering plants generally have inconspicuous flowers. Entomophilous (literally insect-loving) plants produce pollen that is relatively heavy, sticky and protein-rich, for dispersal by insect pollinators attracted to their flowers. Many insects and some mites are specialized to feed on pollen, and are called palynivores.
In non-flowering seed plants, pollen germinates in the pollen chamber, located beneath and inside the micropyle. A pollen tube is produced, which grows into the nucellus to provide nutrients for the developing sperm cells. Sperm cells of Pinophyta and Gnetophyta are without flagella, and are carried by the pollen tube, while those of Cycadophyta and Ginkgophyta have many flagella.
When placed on the stigma of a flowering plant, under favorable circumstances, a pollen grain puts forth a pollen tube which grows down the tissue of the style to the ovary, and makes its way along the placenta, guided by projections or hairs, to the micropyle of an ovule. The nucleus of the tube cell has meanwhile passed into the tube, as does also the generative nucleus which divides (if it hasn't already) to form two sperm cells. The sperm cells are carried to their destination in the tip of the pollen-tube.
Pollen as a carrier of ecological information in plants
A Russian theoretical biologist, Vigen Geodakyan (Geodakian), has suggested that the quantity of pollen reaching a pistillate flower can transmit ecological information and also regulate evolutionary plasticity in cross-pollinating plants. Plentiful pollen indicates optimum environmental conditions (for example a plant that is situated at the center of its natural range, in ideal growing conditions, with a large number of male plants nearby, and favorable weather conditions), whereas a small amount of pollen indicates extreme conditions (at the borders of its range, with a deficiency of male plants, and adverse weather conditions). Geodakian believes that the quantity of pollen reaching a pistillate flower defines the sex ratio, dispersion and sexual dimorphism of a plant population. High pollen quantity leads to a reduction of these characteristics and stabilization of a population. Small quantity leads to their increase and destabilization of a population.
Dependence of the secondary sex ratio on the amount of fertilizing pollen was confirmed on four dioecious plant species from three families — Rumex acetosa (Polygonaceae), Melandrium album (Cariophyllaceae), Cannabis sativa and Humulus japonicus (Cannabinaceae). (see summary of all these data in review article).
Dependence of offspring phenotype variety on amount of pollen was observed by Ter-Avanesyan in 1949. All three studied species of plants (cotton plant, black-eyed pea, and wheat) showed dependence in the direction forecast by the theory — fertilization with a small amount of pollen resulted in an increase in the diversity of the offspring. Ter-Avanesian writes that as a result of a limited pollination “instead of homogenous sorts we get populations”.
Pollen in the fossil record
Pollen's sporopolenin outer sheath affords it some resistance to the rigours of the fossilisation process that destroy weaker objects; it is also produced in huge quantities. As such, there is an extensive fossil record of pollen grains, often disassociated from their parent plant. The discipline of palynology is devoted to the study of pollen, which can be used both for biostratigraphy and to gain information about the abundance and variety of plants alive - which can itself yield important information about paleoclimates. Pollen is first found in the fossil record in the late Devonian period and increases in abundance until the present day
Hay fever
Allergy to pollen is called hay fever. Generally pollens that cause allergies are those of anemophilous plants (pollen is dispersed by air currents.) Such plants produce large quantities of lightweight pollen (because wind dispersal is random and the likelihood of one pollen grain landing on another flower is small) which can be carried for great distances and are easily inhaled, bringing it into contact with the sensitive nasal passages.
In the US, people often mistakenly blame the conspicuous goldenrod flower for allergies. Since this plant is entomophilous (its pollen is dispersed by animals), its heavy, sticky pollen does not become independently airborne. Most late summer and fall pollen allergies are probably caused by ragweed, a widespread anemophilous plant.
Arizona was once regarded as a haven for people with pollen allergies, although several ragweed species grow in the desert. However, as suburbs grew and people began establishing irrigated lawns and gardens, more irritating species of ragweed gained a foothold and Arizona lost its claim of freedom from hay fever.
Anemophilous spring blooming plants such as oak, birch, hickory, pecan, and early summer grasses may also induce pollen allergies. Most cultivated plants with showy flowers are entomophilous and do not cause pollen allergies.
Pollen in human diets
A variety of producers have started selling pollen for human consumption, often marketed as a healthy food. Like many other foods, pollen contains water, amino acids, proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, minerals, vitamins, enzymes and other micronutrients. Composition depends on plant species collected by bees. Supplements of pollen have been used in a number of treatments, e.g. treatment of anemia, disorders of digestive system, mental disorders like depression, asthenia and alcohol dependence.
The FDA has not found any harmful effects of pollen consumption, except from the usual allergies. However, FDA does not allow pollen marketers in the United States to make health claims about their produce, as no scientific basis for these has ever been proved. Furthermore, there are possible dangers not only from allergic reactions but also from contaminants such as pesticides and from fungi and bacteria growth related to poor storage procedures. A manufacturers's claim that pollen collecting helps the bee colonies is also controversial.

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Beeswax

Worker bees of a certain age will secrete beeswax from a series of glands on their abdomens. They use the wax to form the walls and caps of the comb. As with honey, beeswax is gathered for various purposes. Beeswax is a natural wax produced in the bee hive of honey bees of the genus Apis. Beeswax is produced by young worker bees between 12 and 17 days old in the form of thin scales secreted by glands on the ventral surface of the abdomen. Worker bees have eight wax-producing mirror glands on the inner sides of the sternites (the ventral shield or plate of each segment of the body) on abdominal segments 4 to 7. The size of these wax glands depends on the age of the worker and after daily flights begin these glands gradually atrophy. The new wax scales are initially glass-clear and colourless (see illustration), becoming opaque after mastication by the worker bee. The wax of honeycomb is nearly white, but becomes progressively more yellow or brown by incorporation of pollen oils and propolis. The wax scales are about 3 mm across and 0.1 mm thick, and about 1100 are required to make a gram of wax.

Western honey bees use the beeswax to build honeycomb cells in which their young are raised and honey and pollen are stored. For the wax-making bees to secrete wax, the ambient temperature in the hive has to be 33 to 36 °C (91 to 97 °F). To produce their wax, bees must consume about eight times as much honey by mass. It is estimated that bees fly 150,000 miles to yield one pound of beeswax (530,000 km/kg). When beekeepers extract the honey, they cut off the wax caps from each honeycomb cell with an uncapping knife or machine. Its color varies from nearly white to brownish, but most often a shade of yellow, depending on purity and the type of flowers gathered by the bees. Wax from the brood comb of the honey bee hive tends to be darker than wax from the honeycomb. Impurities accumulate more quickly in the brood comb. Due to the impurities, the wax has to be rendered before further use. The leftovers are called slumgum.
The wax may further be clarified by heating in water and may then be used for candles or as a lubricant for drawers and windows or as a wood polish. As with petroleum waxes, it may be softened by dilution with vegetable oil to make it more workable at room temperature.
Physical characteristics
Beeswax is a tough wax formed from a mixture of several compounds.
The empirical formula for beeswax is C15H51COOC30H61. Its main components are palmitate, palmitoleate, hydroxypalmitate and oleate esters of long-chain (30-32 carbons) aliphatic alcohols, with the ratio of triacontanylpalmitate CH3(CH2)29O-CO-(CH2)14CH3 to cerotic acid CH3(CH2)24COOH, the two principal components, being 6:1.
Beeswax has a high melting point range, of 62 to 64 °C (144 to 147 °F). If beeswax is heated above 85 °C (185 °F) discoloration occurs. The flash point of beeswax is 204.4 °C (400 °F), there is no reported autoignition temperature. Density at 15 °C is 0.958 to 0.970 g/cm³.
Bee wax can be classified generally into European and Oriental types. The ratio of saponification value is lower (3-5) for European beeswax, and higher (8-9) for Oriental types.
Hydroxyoctacosanyl hydroxystearate can be used as a beeswax substitute as a consistency regulator and emulsion stabilizer. Japan wax is another substitute.
Uses as a product
Beeswax is used commercially to make fine candles, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals including bone wax (cosmetics and pharmaceuticals account for 60% of total consumption), in polishing materials (particularly shoe polish and furniture polish) and as a component of modelling waxes. It is commonly used during the assembly of pool tables to fill the screw holes and the seams between the slates. Accordion makers use beeswax as an adhesive, when blended with pine rosin, to attach reed plates to the structure inside an accordion. Beeswax candles are preferred in most Eastern Orthodox churches because they burn cleanly, with little or no wax dripping down the sides and little visible smoke. Beeswax is also prescribed as the material (or at least a significant part of the material) for the Paschal candle ("Easter Candle") and is recommended for other candles used in the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church.
It is also used as a coating for cheese, to protect the food as it ages. While some cheese-makers have replaced it with plastic, many still use beeswax in order to avoid any unpleasant flavors that may result from plastic. As a food additive, beeswax is known as E901 (glazing agent).
The burning characteristics of beeswax candles differ from those of paraffin. A beeswax candle flame has a "warmer," more yellow color than that of paraffin, and the color of the flame may vary depending on the season in which the wax was harvested.
Beeswax is also an ingredient in moustache wax, as well as dreadlock wax, and was used in the manufacturing of the cylinders used by the earliest phonographs.
As a skin care product a German study found beeswax to be superior to similar "barrier creams" (usually mineral oil based creams, such as petroleum jelly), when used according to its protocol.
Historical use
Beeswax was ancient man's first plastic, and for thousands of years has been used as a modeling material, to create sculpture and jewelry molds for use in the lost-wax casting process, or Cire perdue.
Lost wax casting of metals, practised by ancient Greeks and Romans, involved coating of a wax model with plaster, melting the wax out of the resulting mould and filling the space with molten metal. The technique is still used today by jewellers, goldsmiths and sculptors, in dentistry and even in the industrial manufacture of complex components by investment casting of metals.
The Romans sent messages on hinged pairs of wooden writing tablets coated with beeswax, the message being written into the smooth wax surface using a stylus. After it had been read the message could be erased, and a reply written and returned.
Beeswax has been used since ancient times; traces of it were found in the paintings in the Lascaux cave and in Egyptian mummies. Egyptians used it in shipbuilding as well. In the Roman period, beeswax was used as waterproofing agent for painted walls and as a medium for the Fayum mummy portraits. Nations subjugated by Rome sometimes paid tribute or taxes in beeswax. In the Middle Ages beeswax was considered valuable enough to become a form of currency. It was also used in bow making (see English longbow).
More recently it found use as a component of sealing wax, and in cosmetics. Beeswax is also the traditional material from which to make didgeridoo mouthpieces and the frets on the Philippine kutiyapi, a type of boat lute.
Beeswax has been used for hundreds of years as a sealant or lubricant for bullets in cap and ball and firearms that use black powder. It is often mixed with other ingredients such as olive oil (sweet oil) and sometimes paraffin. It can be used as an ingredient in the bullet lube used primarily in Black Powder cartridge firing weapons.
The wax can be dissolved in turpentine and then used as a furniture finish, sometimes blended with linseed or tung oil

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Morphology of a female honey bee.

Honey bees as a group appear to have their center of origin in South and Southeast Asia (including the Philippines), as all but one of the extant species are native to that region, notably the most plesiomorphic living species (Apis florea and A. andreniformis). The first Apis bees appear in the fossil record at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary, in European deposits dating about 35 million years ago. The origin of these prehistoric honey bees does not necessarily indicate that Europe is where the genus originated, only that it occurred there at that time. There are few known fossil deposits in the suspected region of honeybee origin, and fewer still have been thoroughly studied; moreover, the tropical conditions are generally not ideal for fossilization of small land animals

The close relatives of modern honey bees - e.g. bumblebees and stingless bees - are also social to some degree, and thus social behavior seems a plesiomorphic trait that predates the origin of the genus. Among the extant members of Apis, the more basal species make single, exposed combs, while the more recently-evolved species nest in cavities and have multiple combs, which has greatly facilitated their domestication.
Most species have historically been cultured or at least exploited for honey and beeswax by humans indigenous to their native ranges. Only two of these species have been truly domesticated, one (Apis mellifera) at least since the time of the building of the Egyptian pyramids, and only that species has been moved extensively beyond its native range.
Internal anatomy of a bee: hive-dwelling social insect which produces honey and wax.
Dorsal aorta : blood vessel in the back of a bee that carries blood from the heart to the organs.
Esophagus : part of the digestive system just after the mouth.
Heart : blood-pumping organ.
Intestine : final part of the digestive system.
Rectum : last part of the intestine.
Sting : stinger of a bee.
Nail : pointed nail of a bee.
Venom sac : pocket containing the bee's venon.
Crop : bulge between the esophagus and the gizzard of a bee.
Ventral nervous system : the collection of nerves in the abdomen.
Pharynx : intersection of the respiratory and digestive tracts.
Antenna : organ of touch of a bee.
Brain : seat of the mental faculties of a bee.
Salivary gland : glandular organ that produces saliva.

Morphology of a bee: hive-dwelling social insect which produces honey and wax
Head : foremost part.
Thorax : central part.
Abdomen : rear part.
Wing : appendage of a bee used for aerial locomotion.
Segment : part of the abdomen.
Hind leg : rear limb.
Nail : pointed nail of a bee.
Middle leg : middle limb.
Fore leg : front limb.
Spur : projecting part of the foreleg of a bee.
Tarsus : each of the parts that make up the segment of the bee's leg below the tibia.
Tibia : central part of the bee's leg.
Femur : first part of the bee's leg.
Mouth parts : parts of the mouth.
Compound eye : complex sight organ.
Antenna : touch organ of a bee.
Dwarf honey bees – subgenus Micrapis
Apis florea and Apis andreniformis are small honey bees of southern and southeastern Asia. They make very small, exposed nests in trees and shrubs. Their stings are often incapable of penetrating human skin, so the hive and swarms can be handled with minimal protection. They occur largely sympatrically though they are very distinct evolutionarily and are probably the result of allopatric speciation, their distribution later converging. Given that A. florea is more widely distributed and A. andreniformis is considerably more aggressive, honey is - if at all - usually harvested from the former only. They are the most ancient extant lineage of honey bees, maybe diverging in the Bartonian (some 40 mya or slightly later) from the other lineages, but among themselves do not seem to have diverged a long time before the Neogene.(Arias & Sheppard 2005)
Giant honey bees – subgenus Megapis
There is one recognized species which usually builds single or a few exposed combs on high tree limbs, on cliffs, and sometimes on buildings. They can be very fierce. Periodically robbed of their honey by human "honey hunters", colonies are easily capable of stinging a human being to death when provoked. Their origin as a distinct lineage is only slightly more recent than that of the dwarf honey bees.
• Apis dorsata, the Giant honey bee proper, is native and widespread across most of South and Southeast Asia.
• Apis dorsata binghami, the Indonesian honey bee, is classified as the Indonesian subspecies of the Giant honey bee or a distinct species; in the latter case, A. d. breviligula and/or other lineages would probably also have to be considered species.
• Apis dorsata laboriosa, the Himalayan honey bee, was initially described as a distinct species. Later, it was included in A. dorsata as a subspecies (Engel 1999) based on the biological species concept, though authors applying a genetic species concept have suggested it should be considered a species (Arias & Sheppard 2005). Essentially restricted to the Himalayas, it differs little from the Giant honey bee in appearance, but has extensive behavioral adaptations which enable it to nest in the open at high altitudes despite low ambient temperatures. It is the largest living honey bee.

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The Colonial of Honey bee

The winter, consuming and metabolizing honey in order to keep from One of the most familiar insects in the world is the Honeybee. This member of the insect order Hymenoptera plays a key role in the human and natural world. More has been written about honeybees than any other species of insect. The human fascination with this insect began thousands of years ago when people discovered what wonderfully tasty stuff honey is!

Honey is a thick liquid produced by certain types of bees from the nectar of flowers. While many species of insects consume nectar, honeybees refine and concentrate nectar to make honey. Indeed, they make lots of honey so they will have plenty of food for times when flower nectar is unavailable, such as winter. Unlike most insects, honeybees remain active through freezing to death. Early humans probably watched bears and other mammals raid bee hives for honey and then tried it themselves. Once people found out what honey was, next they had to learn how to get it from the bees safely!

Honeybees have a bright color pattern to warn potential predators (or honey thieves!) that they have a weapon to defend themselves. Their weapon is a modified ovipositor (egg-laying tube). This is combined with a venom gland to create a stinger (formally known as an aculeus) located at the end of the abdomen. Because the stinger is modified from a structure found only in females, male bees cannot sting. When the hive is threatened, honeybees will swarm out and attack with their stingers to drive the enemy away.
Scientific classification :
Kingdom : Animalia
Phylum : Arthropoda
Class : Insecta
Subclass : Pterygota
Infraclass : Neoptera
Superorder : Endopterygota
Order : Hymenoptera
Suborder : Apocrita
Family : Apidae
Subfamily : Apinae
Tribe : Apini
Genus : Apis
There are four different species of honeybee in the world:
1. The Little Honeybee (Apis florea) - native to southeast Asia
2. The Eastern Honeybee (Apis cerana) - native to eastern Asia as far north as Korea & Japan
3. The Giant Honeybee (Apis dorsata) - native to southeast Asia
4. The Western Honeybee (Apis mellifera) - native to Europe, Africa and western Asia
Honeybees are social insects. In the wild, they create elaborate nests called hives containing up to 20,000 individuals during the summer months. (Domestic hives may have over 80,000 bees.) They work together in a highly structured social order. Each bee belongs to one of three specialized groups called castes. The different castes are: queens, drones and workers.
• There is only one queen in a hive and her main purpose in life is to make more bees. She can lay over 1,500 eggs per day and will live two to eight years. She is larger (up to 20mm) and has a longer abdomen than the workers or drones. She has chewing mouthparts. Her stinger is curved with no barbs on it and she can use it many times.
• Drones, since they are males, have no stinger. They live about eight weeks. Only a few hundred - at most - are ever present in the hive. Their sole function is to mate with a new queen, if one is produced in a given year. A drone's eyes are noticeably bigger than those of the other castes. This helps them to spot the queens when they are on their nuptial flight. Any drones left at the end of the season are considered non-essential and will be driven out of the hive to die
• Worker bees do all the different tasks needed to maintain and operate the hive. They make up the vast majority of the hive's occupants and they are all sterile females. When young, they are called house bees and work in the hive doing comb construction, brood rearing, tending the queen and drones, cleaning, temperature regulation and defending the hive. Older workers are called field bees. They forage outside the hive to gather nectar, pollen, water and certain sticky plant resins used in hive construction. Workers born early in the season will live about 6 weeks while those born in the fall will live until the following spring. Workers are about 12 mm long and highly specialized for what they do, with a structure called a pollen basket (or corbiculum) on each hind leg, an extra stomach for storing and transporting nectar or honey and four pairs of special glands that secrete beeswax on the underside of their abdomen. They have a straight, barbed stinger which can only be used once. It rips out of their abdomen after use, which kills the bee.

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One of the colonies of the bee was the worker's bee

A Worker bee is any female eusocial bee that lacks the full reproductive capacity of the colony's queen bee; under most circumstances, this is correlated to an increase in certain non-reproductive activities relative to a queen, as well. Worker bees occur in many bee species other than honey bees, but this is by far the most familiar colloquial use of the term

Honey bee workers keep the hive temperature uniform in the critical brood area (where new bees are raised). Workers gather pollen into the pollen baskets on their back legs, to carry back to the hive where it is used as food for the developing brood. Pollen carried on their bodies may be carried to another flower where a small portion can rub off onto the pistil, resulting in cross pollination. Almost all of civilization's food supply (maize is a noteworthy exception) depends greatly on crop pollination by honey bees, whether directly eaten or used as forage crops for animals that produce milk and meat. Nectar is sucked up through the proboscis, mixed with enzymes in the stomach, and carried back to the hive, where it is stored in wax cells and evaporated into honey. Workers must maintain the hive's brood chamber at 34.4 degrees C to incubate the eggs. If it is too hot, they collect water and deposit it around the hive, then fan air through with their wings causing cooling by evaporation. If it is too cold, they cluster together to generate body heat. The life of all honey bees starts as an egg, about the size of a comma "," which is laid by the queen in the bottom of a wax cell in the brood area of a hive. A worker egg hatches after 3 days into a larva. Nurse bees feed it royal jelly at first, then pollen & honey for 6 days. It then becomes an inactive pupa. The honeycomb has hexagonal cells on both sides of a vertical central wall. As shown in the photo, these cells are inclined upward, primarily to retain liquid nectar and honey. During its 14 days as a pupa, sealed in a capped cell, it grows into a worker (female) bee, emerging on the 20th day. In most species of honey bees, workers do everything but lay eggs and mate, though Cape honey bee workers can lay eggs. They build the comb from wax extruded from glands under their abdomen. They clean, defend, & repair the hive. They feed the larva, the queen, and the drones. They gather nectar, pollen, water, and propolis. They ventilate, cool & heat the hive.

When a colony absconds (all bees leave the colony) or divides and so creates a swarm and then establishes a new colony, the bees must regress in their behavior in order to establish the first generation in the new home. The most urgent task will be the creation of new beeswax for comb. Beekeepers take advantage of this by introducing swarms into new or existing colonies where they will draw comb. Comb is much more difficult to come by than honey and requires about six times the energy to create. A newly hived swarm on bar bars (top bar hive) or empty foundation (Langstroth box hive) will often be fed sugar water, which they can then rapidly consume to create wax for new comb (Mature hives cannot be so fed as they will store it in place of nectar, although a wintering hive may have to be fed if insufficient honey was left by the beekeeper.)
Progression of tasks :
Cell cleaning (Day 1-2): Brood cells must be cleaned before the next use - cells will be inspected by the queen and if unsatisfactory will not be used. Worker bees in the cleaning phase will perform this cleaning.
Nurse bee (Day 3-11): Nurse bees feed the worker larvae worker jelly secreted from the same glands that produce royal jelly.
Advanced Nurse Bees (Day 6-11): Feed royal jelly to the queen larva and drones receive worker jelly for 1 to 3 days at which time they are moved to honey and pollen.
Wax production (Day 12-17):Wax Bees - build cells from wax, repair old cells, and store nectar and pollen brought in by other workers. Early in the worker's career she will exude wax from the space between several of her abdominal segments. Four sets of wax glands, situated inside the last four ventral segments of the abdomen, produce wax for comb construction.
Worker activities :
Honey sealing: Mature honey, sufficiently dried, is sealed tightly with wax to prevent absorption of moisture from the air by workers deputized to do same.
Drone feeding :Drones do not feed themselves; they are fed by workers.
Queen attendants :The attendants or retinue groom and feed the queen. They also collect QMP (Queen Mandibular Pheromone) from the queen and share it with the bees around them who also share it spreading its effects through the hive.
Honeycomb building :Workers will take wax from wax producing workers and build the comb with it.
Pollen packing :Pollen brought into the hive for feeding the brood is also stored. It must be packed firmly into comb cells and mixed with a small amount of honey so that it will not spoil. Unlike honey, which does not support bacterial life, stored pollen will become rancid without proper care.
Propolizing :The walls of the hive will be covered with a thin coating of propolis, a resinous substance obtained from plants. In combination with enzymes added by the worker this will have antibacterial and antifungal properties. Propolis is also used to close off excessive ventilation and entrances.
Mortuary bees : Dead bees and failed larvae must be removed from the hive to prevent disease and allow cells to be reused. They will be carried some distance from the hive by mortuary bees.
Fanning bees : Worker bees fan the hive, cooling it with evaporated water brought by water carriers. They direct airflow into the hive or out of the hive depending on need.
Guard Bees (Days 18 - 21) :protect the entrance of the hive from enemies
• Soldier bees : Soldiers hang around near the entrance and attack invaders. They work in concert with entrance guards.
• Entrance guard bees : These inspect incoming bees to ensure that they are bringing in food and have the correct hive odor. Other bees will be rejected or attacked with soldier bees.
• Outside guard bees : Outer guards may take short flights around the outside of the hive in response to disturbances.
Water carriers : When the hive is in danger of overheating these bees will obtain water, usually from within a short distance from the hive and bring it back to spread on the backs of fanning bees. The worker bee has a crop separate from the nectar crop for this purpose.
Foraging bees (Days 22 - 42) : The forager and scout bees travel (up to 1.5 miles) to a nectar source, pollen source or to collect propolis.
Genetic characteristics : In most common bee species, worker bees are infertile and thus never reproduce. They are nevertheless considered female for anatomical and genetic reasons. Genetically, a worker bee does not differ from a queen bee and can even become a laying worker bee, but in most species will produce only male (drone) offspring. Whether a larva becomes a worker or a queen depends on the kind of food it is given after the first three days of its larval form.

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Who is Queen bee ??

The term queen bee is typically used to refer to an adult, mated female that lives in a honey bee colony or hive; she is usually the mother of all the bees in the hive. The 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. The term "queen bee" can be more generally applied to any dominant reproductive female in a colony of a eusocial bee species other than honey bees. The term queen bee is typically used to refer to an adult, mated female that lives in a honey bee colony or hive; she is usually the mother of all the bees in the hive. The 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. The term "queen bee" can be more generally applied to any dominant reproductive female in a colony of a eusocial bee species other than honey bees.

Development

When conditions are favorable for swarming the queen will start laying eggs in queen cups. A virgin queen will develop from a fertilized egg. The fertilized egg is identical to eggs which will develop into worker bees. The young queen larvae develops differently because it is more heavily fed royal jelly, a protein-rich secretion from glands on the heads of young workers. (All honey bee larvae are fed some royal jelly for the first few days after hatching but only queen larvae are fed on it exclusively.) As a result of the difference in diet, the queen will develop into a sexually mature female, unlike the worker bees. Queens are raised in specially-constructed queen cells. Queen cells start out as queen cups. Queen cups are larger than the cells of normal brood comb and are oriented vertically instead of horizontally. Only when the queen lays an egg in a queen cup, will the worker bees further build up the queen cup. In general, the old queen starts laying eggs into queen cups when conditions are right for swarming. Swarm cells hang from the bottom of a frame while "supersedure" queens or emergency queens are generally raised in cells built out from the face of a frame. The fully constructed queen cells have a peanut-like shape and texture. As the young queen larva pupates with her head down, the workers cap the queen cell with beeswax. When ready to emerge, the virgin queen will chew a circular cut around the cap of her cell. Often the cap swings open when most of the cut is made, so as to appear like a hinged lid. During swarming season, the old queen will likely leave with the prime swarm before the first virgin queen emerges from a queen cell.

Virgin queen bee
A virgin queen is a queen bee that has not mated with a drone. Virgins are intermediate in size between workers and mated, laying queens, and are much more active than the latter. They are hard to spot while inspecting a frame, because they run across the comb, climbing over worker bees if necessary, and may even take flight if sufficiently disturbed. Virgin queens can often be found clinging to the walls or corners of a hive during inspections. Virgin queens appear to have little queen pheromone and often do not appear to be recognized as queens by the workers. A virgin queen in her first few hours after emergence can be placed into the entrance of any queenless hive or nuc and acceptance is usually very good, whereas a mated queen is usually recognized as a stranger and runs a high risk of being killed by the older workers. When a young virgin queen emerges from a queen cell, she will generally seek out her virgin queen rivals and attempt to kill them. Virgin queens will quickly find and kill (by stinging) any other emerged virgin queen (or be dispatched themselves), as well as any unemerged queens. Queen cells that are opened on the side indicate that a virgin queen was likely killed by a rival virgin queen. When a colony remains in swarm mode after the prime swarm has left, the workers may prevent virgins from fighting and one or several virgins may go with after swarms. Other virgins may stay behind with the remnant of the hive. As many as 21 virgin queens have been counted in a single large swarm. When the after swarm settles into a new home, the virgins will then resume normal behavior and fight to the death until only one remains.
If the prime swarm has a virgin queen and the old queen, the old queen will usually be allowed to live. The old queen continues laying. Within a couple of weeks she will disappear and the former virgin, now mated, will take her place. Unlike the worker bees, the queen's stinger is not barbed. The queen can sting repeatedly without dying.
Piping
Piping describes a noise made by virgin and mated queen bees during certain times of the virgin queens development. Fully developed virgin queens communicate through vibratory signals: "quacking" from virgin queens in their queen cells and "tooting" from queens free in the colony, collectively known as piping. A virgin queen may frequently pipe before she emerges from her cell and for a brief time afterwards. Mated queens may briefly pipe after being released in a hive. The piping sound is variously described as a children's trumpet tooting and quacking. It is quite loud and can be clearly heard outside the hive. The piping sound is created by the flight motor without movement of the wings. The vibration energy is resonated by the thorax. Piping is most common when there is more than one queen in a hive. It is postulated that the piping is a form of battle cry announcing to competing queens and the workers their willingness to fight. It may also be a signal to the worker bees which queen is the most worthwhile to support. The piping sound is a G or A. The adult queen pipes for a two-second pulse followed by a series of quarter-second toots. The queens of Africanized bees produce more vigorous and frequent bouts of piping.
Reproduction cycle
The surviving virgin queen will fly out on a sunny, warm day to a "drone congregation area" where she will mate with 12-15 drones. If the weather holds, she may return to the drone congregation area for several days until she is fully mated. The young queen stores the sperm from multiple drones in her spermatheca. She will selectively release sperm for the remaining 2-7 years of her life. The young virgin queen has only a limited time to mate. If she is unable to fly for several days because of bad weather and remains unmated, she will become a "drone layer." Drone-laying queens usually mean the death of the colony, because the workers have no fertilized (female) larvae from which to raise worker bees or a replacement queen. A special, rare case of reproduction is thelytoky: the reproduction of female workers or queens by laying worker bees. Thelytoky occurs in the Cape bee, Apis mellifera capensis, and has been found in other strains at very low frequency.
Supersedure
Supersedure is the process by which an old queen bee is replaced by a new queen. Supersedure may be initiated due to old age of a queen or a diseased or failing queen. As the queen ages her pheromone output diminishes. Supersedure may be forced by a beekeeper. For example, by clipping off one of the middle or posterior legs from the queen, she will be unable to properly place her eggs at the bottom of the brood cell. The workers will detect this and will then rear replacement queens. When a new queen is available, the workers will kill the reigning queen by "balling" her — clustering tightly around her until she dies from overheating. (This overheating method is also used to kill large predatory wasps that enter the hive in search of food and may be used against a foreign queen attempting to take over an existing colony.) Balling is often a problem for beekeepers attempting to introduce a replacement queen. If a queen suddenly dies the workers will flood several cells, where the larva has just emerged, with royal jelly. The young larva floats on the royal jelly. The worker bees then build a larger queen cell from the normal sized worker cell and it protrudes vertically from the face of the brood comb. Emergency queens are usually smaller and less prolific, and therefore not preferred by beekeepers.
Daily life for the queen
Although the name might imply it, a queen does not directly control the hive. Her sole function is to serve as the reproducer. A well-mated and well-fed queen of quality stock can lay about 2,000 eggs per day during the spring build-up — more than her own bodyweight in eggs every day. She is continuously surrounded by worker bees who meet her every need, giving her food and disposing of her waste. The attendant workers also collect and then distribute queen mandibular pheromone, a pheromone that inhibits the workers from starting queen cells. The queen lays a fertilized (female) or unfertilized (male) egg according to the width of the cell. Drones are raised in cells which are significantly larger than the cells used for workers. The queen fertilizes the egg by selectively releasing sperm from her spermatheca as the egg passes through her oviduct.
Identification
The queen bee's abdomen is noticeably longer than the worker honeybees surrounding her. Even so, in a hive of 60,000 to 80,000 honeybees, it is often difficult for beekeepers to find the queen with any speed; for this reason, many queens in non-feral colonies are marked with a light daub of paint on their thorax. The paint used does no harm to the queen and makes her much easier to find when necessary. Although the color is sometimes randomly chosen, professional queen breeders use a colour which identifies the year a queen hatched, which helps them to decide whether their queens are too old to maintain a strong hive and need to be replaced. Sometimes tiny convex disks marked with identification numbers are used when a beekeeper has many queens born in the same yea

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