Morphological changes and colony activity in honeybee workers Apis mellifera produced from irradiated queens.

Abstract

The present work was carried out to study effect of different doses of ionizing gamma irradiation on honey bee queens soon after emergence, i.e. as virgins, and also mated queens on eggs laying as number of sealed brood, and workers progeny and possible occurrence of any induced morphological changes in workers as well as their performance in colony activity as honey production. The exposed virgin and mated queens did not affected by different low doses of radiation (20 - 200 rad), except the number of sealed brood cell produced by irradiated virgin queens was decreased at dose 200 rad, high dose of irradiation (400 rad) caused a complete died in virgin queens while mated queens irradiated by 400 rad produced significant low numbers of sealed brood. Bee honey production was significantly decreased only when virgin or mated queens irradiated with high dose (400 rad). No significant changes in the measurement of workers appendages, such as flagellum, hind wings, fore and hind legs as a result of exposing virgin queens to doses between 20 and 200 rad, except fore wing reduced in length and width only at dose 200 rad. In case of mated queens, the above mentioned measurement did not affected at doses between 2o and 200 rad while significant decreased in the morphological measurement was occurred at dose (400 rad).