Lebanese University

faculty of Agronomy

Senescence in the
worker honeybee
Presented by
Apis mellifera
Mayssa Harfouch
Cosette Nehme
to
Dr. Dalida Darazy

2019-2020

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Outline

Intro- conclu
duction sion

Resu-
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lts

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 The Queen
The only fertile female in the colony.
Lay fertilized eggs.

Capable of producing up to 2,000

Conclusion
Results
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eggs within a single day.

Intro
Continually emits pheromones.

A queen bee lives for 1-2 years.

Queen leaves the hive only for mating at 1-2

weeks of age. And later for swarming.

Rarely sting. 3
 The worker

Day old Duies

1-2 Cleaner & housekeeper. And keep the brood warm

Intro
3-5 Nurse and nanny. Feeds older larvae
6-11 Nurse and nanny. Feeds younger larvae with royall jelly.
12-17 Hive builder.a Produces wax and constructs comb.
18-21 Guard & ventilator. Guard the entrance & ventilate the hive.
22-35 Foragers. Flies out to gather pollen, nectar, propolis and water
for hive.

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 Intrensic physiological differences
Senescence or
Extrensic factors ?

Age-related decline in physiological function, performance,

survival or reproduction.

Different organisms senesce at dramatically different rate.

Intro
Among the eusocial insects, queens and workers of the honeybee
of the same species show a 100-fold difference in lifespan.
Queen honeybee have longer lifespan than the workers.
Apis mellifera Queens Workers
15-38 days in S
Average lifespan 1-2 years
140 days in W

Queen longevity is not linked to its reproductive capacity.

Queens and workers are not genetically distinct.
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 1. Eperimental colonies.

Each initially composed

x5 of ca. 10,000 1-day old
bees.
Conclusion
Results

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Intro
1-day old worker bees: pupae frames removed
and placed in an incubator (34degree and 80% RH).

Bees were marked with a paint dot on the dorsal thorax.

This process was continued over a 5-day period.

Add: mated queen + 4 frames of honey and pollen.

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2. Collections of bees.

At each coection date, we cllected 300 bees from each age class (10,
30, and 50 days old) that was available at that date.
Bees of different age classes were availble on the same day.
They evaluate the effect of stress resistnce.

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Intro
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3. Stress tests.
Effect of oxidative stress, heat stress, and starvation on bees
from each age class.
Resistance to these stressors typically declines in senescing

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insects, causing increased mortality.

Intro
Hydgrogen
Starvation Heat
peroxide

In incubator 50% sucrose

Incubated at
without any 20% hydrogen
42ᵒC
food at 34ᵒC peroxide

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4. Censusing mortality

Bees were censused at 0:00, 6:00, 12:00 and 18:00 h until all were dead.
Information on age and source colony was obtained from the thorax
markings.

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Intro
5. Lipid analysis

Exploration of lipid content in dad bees due to starvation.

Dissection of the digestive tract. Abdomen freeze-dried and
homogenized in a 2:1 chloroform: methanol solution.

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  Mean survival times for 10-day-old bees were
longer than for older bees in all three stress tests.

Table 1. Effects of starvation, heat, and hydrogen peroxide

(oxidative stress) on lifespan for nurse honey bees 10, 30 and 50
days of age.
Conclusion

Treatment Age class Mean (SE) Median Sample size

Results
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Intro
Starvation 10 91 (5.0) 42 478
30 46 (1.4) 36 375
50 31 (0.9) 24 287

Heat 10 120 (2.2) 120 484

30 107 (2.5) 102 371
50 106 (2.6) 102 288

Hydrogen 10 82 (2.5) 75 479

Peroxide 30 81 (2.8) 66 371
50 75 (2.5) 66 287
 10-day-old bees had significantly lower mortality per unit
time than did 50-day olds in each treatment.

Table 2. Effects of starvation, heat, and hydrogen peroxide on lifespan for

nurse honey bees 10, 30, and 50 days of age.

Results
Treatment Contrast Hazard Confidence X2 P

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Intro
ratio intervals
Starvation 10 vs. 30 1.514 (1.280, 1.791) 23.4 <.0001
Starvation 10 vs. 50 2.637 (2.183, 3.184) 101.4 <.0001
Starvation 30 vs. 50 1.741 (1.469, 2.064) 40.9 <.0001
Heat 10 vs. 30 1.506 (1.3, 1.744) 29.7 <.0001
Heat 10 vs. 50 1.739 (1.475, 2.049) 43.5 <.0001
Heat 30 vs. 50 1.155 (0.982, 1.358) 3.0 0.08
Peroxide 10 vs. 30 1.073 (0.927, 1.241) 0.9 0.34
Peroxide 10 vs. 50 1.257 (1.069, 1.478) 7.6 0.006
Peroxide 30 vs. 50 1.172 (0.998, 1.337) 3.7 0.005
 Senescense differences in resistance to stresses:
Heat

Results
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Intro
 Senescense differences in resistance to stresses:
Starvation

Results
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Intro
 Senescense differences in resistance to stresses:
Hydrogen peroxide

Results
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Intro
 Lipid exploration for bees under starvation stress.

Results
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Intro
Abdominal lipid content for 7 day old nurses, 50 day old nurses and 50 day
old foragers.
Letters indicate groups that differ significantly in mean lipid content by pair-
wise contrasts. Numbers at bottom of bars indicate sample size.
 Worker bees show senescence.

 Younger bees are more resistant to senescence than

older bees.

Conclusion
Results

Abstrac
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Intro
 Heat cause the highest senescence rate.

 Worker bees did not exhibit an age-dependent decline

in performance but showed an increase in mortality

with chronological age.

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 Limited worker lifespan is due at least in intrinsic

senescence and not solely to extrinsic mortality

factors.

Conclusion
Results

Abstrac
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Intro
 The extended lifespan of queens may be due to

slower senescence, and not just to lower extrinsic

mortality.

 Further studies about senescence in queens should be

carried out.
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Thank you

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Remolina, S. Hafez, D. Robinson, G and Huges, K. (2007).
Senescence in the worker honeybee Apis mellifera. Journal of
insect physiology.

Results

Abstract
Abstrac
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Intro
Ref
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