Effect of varroa destructor infestation on antennal sense organs of the worker and drone honey bees and some physiological activities in Egypt

Abstract EN

Honey bees Apis mellifera (Hymenoptera: Apidae) as all hymenopteran insects have specialized antennal sensilla to facilitate their biological behaviors, such as habitat searching, food recognition, selection, and acceptance, courtship, mating and oviposition.

In the present work, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to study the external morphology of the antennal sensilla of workers and drones of the craniolian hybrid which infested with varroa mites (Varroa destructor Oud.), Based on the morphology of the sensilla in each sex, seven types of sensilla were identified, i.e.

sensilla trichodea (Tr.a, Tr.b Tr,c.) sensilla basiconica (Ba.a, Ba.b), sensilla placodea (Pl), sensilla coeloconica (Co), sensilla chaetica (Ch), sensellae ampulecium (Am) and sensilla campaniformia (Ca).

Placodea, trichodea and basiconica sensilla were the most common sensilla.

They are more in the antenna of drone than workers.

Mean number of sensilla placodea, sensilla trichodea, sensilla campaniformia, sensilla coeloconica and sensilla basiconic (type a and b) on flagellomeres no.2, 4,6,8 and 10 were calculated.

They were significantly decreased with the infestation by varroa mites especially in the deformed newly emerged honey bee workers and drones compared with the healthy ones while the surface area of the placoid sensilla increased in the infested bees.

The obtained results provide a basis of further studies on the searching behavior of bees in relation to food source by workers or mating by drones by using electrophysiology studies.