The environment and the bees?
The environment and the bees?
New studies are slowly shedding light on the important role genes and the environment play in bee behavior. It has long been known that the queen has two X chromosomes and retains male sperm after mating. Only fertilize the eggs when there is a need to produce new queen pupae. This results in a swarm in which queens and bees leave the beehive to colonize elsewhere. Males are not the result of sexual mating and contain only half a set of chromosomes. The workers are sterile women who result from an asexual process.
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| Environment and the bees |
It has been said that we are all the product of nature and education; that is, our inherited genetic potential and environmental factors during our development and the interaction between them. The same goes for bees. During the first two weeks of life, female workers exercise beehives in the beehive: cleaning, ventilating the air, building the honeycomb structure, feeding the broods, and removing dead bees. For the remaining five to seven weeks of their lives, workers become collectors. Some focus on collecting pollen which is mixed with the secreted wax to build the honeycomb. Others focus on collecting nectar, which turns into honey after burping in the beehive.
Genetic studies and brain analysis at the individual bee level have shown the important roles of gene expression and the environment. A hormone produced by the queen activates gene expression that promotes lactation. A specific gene has been identified as a key player in determining social change from the nurse to the collector. With the new diagnoses, scientists can now examine thousands of gene expressions simultaneously. A better understanding of bees' genes, the environment, and social behavior could be helpful in beekeeping and using bees as pollinators in the seed production of plants such as hybrid sunflowers and onions. It is also used to advance understanding of gene expression in humans, particularly the genes involved in various types of cancer.
Pollination is essential to sexual production in plants, and in bee-pollinated plants, it has led to coevolution between plants and animals. The production of abundant nectar and pollen is the cost of planting the services accidentally provided by the pollinator. Most bees are pollinators and are attracted to flowers for food.
Plants are indispensable for life on earth as primary producers and maintain water catchment areas, prevent soil erosion and offer protection, places of refuge (places of refuge from which organisms repopulate distributed areas) and food, nesting sites, and useful materials for many animals and people... Hence, pollination is essential to agriculture and environmental management, and a variety of pollinators are required to sustain reproduction in a wide variety of plant species. Since the cost of pollination is the excessive production of nectar and pollen by plants, the cost of pollination to land users is to maintain the shelter.
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