Morphometric and Wings Venation Analysis of Honey Bee Species in Dehradun, Uttarakhand

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1 Archive of Life Science and Environment (Arch. Life Sci. & Env.) 1 (1): (2017) Morphometric and Wings Venation Analysis of Honey Bee Species in Dehradun, Uttarakhand Ashish Uniyal 1* Neetika Thakur 1, Diksha Thakur 1 and Nikhil S. Kahera 1 1 Department of Zoology, Uttaranchal College of Science and Technology, (Dehradun ) Uttarakhand, INDIA * Corresponding author ashish.uniyal5@gmail.com Abstract: Almost all species of honey bees are found in India. Honey bees play an important role in the conservation of biodiversity and evolution of many plant species by pollination. The present study investigates morphological characters of honey bees using a simple technique called as Scan Photo Technique. Scan Photo Technique (STP) is a low cost, fast and easier method for morphometric discrimination for honey bee populations. Some morphological characteristics of body parts of honey bee workers were selected and dissected which were further scanned as image using a scanner. Statistical analyses of morphological characteristics of honey bees such as fore wing length (FWL), hind wing length (HWL), fore wing width (FWW), hind wing length (HWW), femur length (FM), tiba length (TL), basitarsus length (BL) and the length of cubital indexes and angles of fore wings and hind wing were discriminated. Introduction Honeybee is the member of genus Apis and belongs to class insecta (order hymenoptera). Currently only seven species of honeybees viz Apis dorsata, Apis cerana, Apis mellifera, Apis nearctica, Apis florae, Apis koschevnikovi and Apis nigrocincta are recognized with a total of 44 subspecies. The major species of honey bees found in India are Apis cerana indica, Apis dorsata, Apis florae which represent only a small fraction of 20,000 species. The common method for the characterization and classification of honeybee subspecies is based mainly on measuring honey bee wing characters, which is considered as strong tool for measurement (Rattanawannee et al., 2010). Various honey bee colonies, races and species were discriminated by employing morphometric analysis (Nedic et al., 2011; Rattanawannee et al., 2010) but not many studies are undertaken on geometric morphometric of honey bees. Apis dorsata, Apis cerana, Apis mellifera are found in Uttarakhand and Apis dorsata and Apis cerana are mostly found in Dehradun region. Apis dorsata is commonly known as giant rock bee, found in the wild and is the largest spp. of honeybee. It is ferocious in nature so it is impossible to domesticate them. Apis cerana commonly known as Asian bee is found in the wild and contains 8 subspecies, out of which Apis cerana indica and Apis cerana cerana are mostly domesticated. Morphometric and wing pattern study is laborious and time consuming for the identification of bee species. Thus standard and geometric morphometrics were employed in combination with various computer softwares and simple methods for investigating wings symmetry and for discriminating between Apis spp. Materials and Methods Study Insect Apis dorsata: Apis dorsata, the giant honey bee, is a honey bee of South and Southeast Asia, mainly found in forest areas such as the Terai of Nepal and sometimes even in Malaysia and Singapore. They are typically around mm ( in) long in size. Nests are mainly built in exposed places far off the ground like on tree limbs, under cliff overhangs and sometimes on buildings. Apis cerrena indica: Apis cerena indica, the Indian honeybee or eastern honeybee, is a subspecies of honeybee. It is one of the predominant bees found and domesticated in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Burma, Banglades, Sri Lanka, Thailand and mainland Asia. Relatively non-aggressive and rarely exhibiting swarming behaviour. Study area Dehradun is situated between the latitude 30 19' in the North to longitude 78 04' in the East. Dehradun is situated at an altitude of 2,200 ft. It contains total sq km area. Dehra Dun can be divided into two distinct tracts i.e. the mountain tract and the sub- All Rights Reserved Navya Society of Higher Education,

2 22 mountain tract. In the present study, few fore wings and hind wings for two honey bee races were used. Samples of workers honey bee were collected from brood combs at Cantt, City and Rajpur region in Dehradun for morphometric analysis and few were collected from flowers with the help of hand net and subsequently killed at 0 C. Measuring of morphological characters: The tested morphological characters of forewing length and width, hind wing length and width, femur length, tibia length, tarsus length, width, cubital indexes, fore wing angles and hind wing angles were measured. Measurements of the above mentioned characters were taken according to Gomeh et al. (2016), Abou Shaara, Al-Ghamdi (2012), El-Aw et al. (2012), Abou-Shaara et al. (2011), Eid et al. (2010) and Ruttner (1988) with little modification. The experiment was conducted to evaluate the developed technique where morphological characters were measured by Scan Photo method. In Scan Photo method all of the studied morphological characters were measured using scanner. The separated body parts of worker bees were put on glass slides and covered with another glass slides. The slides were scanned and moved into the computer as images. The images were opened on the Photoshop program and characters were measured by ImageTool 3.0 program ( and using Image J 1.46 program/ using Image Tool 3.0 program (Klingenberg, 2011). Results and Discussion Ashish Uniyal et al. / Arch. Life Sci. & Env. 1 (1): (2017) Standard morphometric was used for the discrimination between the two races of honeybees in Dehradun region i.e. Apis dorsata and Apis cerana from different areas (Cantt City and Rajpur) using morphometric study (Table 1 and 2). The result of present study showed that the morphological characters of Apis dorsata collected from different regions of Dehradun such as length and width of fore wing ranges from 1.26 to 1.27 cm and 0.43 to 0.47 cm respectively, length and width of hind wing ranges from 0.80 to 0.83 cm and 0.20 to 0.22 cm and length of leg is 1.4 cm. Length of femur ranges from 0.30 to 0.34 cm and length of tibia is 0.36 to 0.39 cm, length of metatarsus ranges from 0.51 to 0.54 cm and width of metatarsus is 0.1 cm. The morphological characters of Apis cerena collected from different regions of Dehradun showed that the length and width of fore wing of ranges from 0.85 to 0.86 cm and 0.29 to 0.31 cm respectively, length and width of hind wing ranges from 0.52 to 0.55 cm and 0.16 to 0.17 cm and length of leg is Length of femur ranges from 0.28 Figure 1b. HL (Hind wing length), HW (Hind wing width). Figure 1a. Forewing- FL (Fore wing length), FW (Fore wing width). Figure 1c. Length of femur (FL), tibia length (TL) and metatarsus (MTL), width of metatarsus (MTW). Figure 1. Measuring of morphological characters for only one chosen fore wing, hind wing, leg by using the Photoshop program and image tool

3 Ashish Uniyal et al. / Arch. Life Sci. & Env. 1 (1): (2017) 23 Figure 2. Eighteen landmarks on vein junctions of fore wing. Figure 3. Angles formed on the forewing. Figure 4. Measuring of Distance DC and Distance DD of forewing. CB Cubital Index (CI) = BA Figure 5. Fore wing of honey bee worker used for measurements of cubital index. Figure 6. Measuring of Cubital A (CA) and Cubital B (CB). to 0.30 cm and length of tibia is 0.30 to 0.33 cm, length of metatarsus ranges from 0.34 to 0.36 cm and width of metatarsus is 0.1 cm. However, geometric morphometric of fore wing points was used for discrimination between the two races based on their measurements and different wing venation angles. The measurement of given characters of honey bee from Cantt City and Rajpur showed that angle A is 39 to 41, B is 87 to 89 and C is 78 to 79 in the fore wing of honeybee Apis dorsata. However, in Apis cerana the angle A is 59 to 61, B is 81 to 82 and C is 77 to 78. The mean cubital index for fore wings of Apis dorsata is 0.01 ± 0.00 to 0.02 ± 0.00 and Apis cerana is 0.01 ± Moreover, the Figure 2. Measuring off three hind wing angles; H1, H2 and H3. mean length of DC in the fore wing of Apis dorsata is 0.30 ± 0.04 to 0.32 ± 0.04 and the mean length of DD in the fore wing of Apis dorsata is 0.53 ± 0.05 to 0.55 ± The mean length of DC in the fore wing of Apis cerana is 0.19 ± 0.00 to 0.20 ± 0.00 and the mean length of DD in the fore wing of Apis cerana is 0.3 ± 0.00 to 0.4 ± The mean length of CA in the fore wing of Apis dorsata is 0.41 ± 0.05 to 0.43 ± 0.05 and the mean length of CB in the forewing of Apis dorsata is 0.21 ± 0.04 to 0.24 ± The mean length of CA in the forewing of Apis cerana is 0.19 ± 0.05 to 0.20 ±

4 24 Morphological Characters Ashish Uniyal et al. / Arch. Life Sci. & Env. 1 (1): (2017) Table 1. Mean of morphometric measurement of Apis dorsata and Apis cerana in Dehradun. Apis dorsata 0.00 and the mean length of CB in the forewing of Apis cerana is 0.9 ± 0.00 to 0.10 ± The angle H1 in the hindwing of Apis dorsata is 28 to 30, the angle H2 in the hind wing of Apis dorsata is 37 to 39 and the angle H3 in the hind wing of Apis dorsata is 79 to 81. The angle H1 in the hind wing of Apis cerana is 29 to 30, the angle H2 in the hind wing of Apis cerana is 38 to 39 and the angle H3 in the hind wing of Apis cerana is 68 to 70. The measurement of small part of wing venations of honey bee strongly confirmed the symmetry of honey bee wings using simple technique and with the help of image tool that help in successful discrimination between the two races. Mean ± SE Conclusion The present study concluded results of morphological characters using simple standard and geometrical morphometric analyses with the help of software. The present study strongly confirmed that the symmetry and length of honey bee wings along with other parameters showed discrimination between two races. References Apis cerena Cantt City Rajpur Cantt City Rajpur Fore wing length (FWL) 1.26 ± ± ± ± ± ± 0.19 Fore wing width (FWW) 0.43 ± ± ± ± ± ± 0.11 Hind wing length (HWL) 0.83 ± ± ± ± ± ± 0.18 Hind wing width 0.17 ± 0.20 ± ± ± ± 0.11 (HWW) ±0.09 Total Leg length (TL) 1.4 ± ± ± ± ± ± 0.09 Femur length (FL) 0.30 ± ± ± ± ± ± 0.03 Tibia length (TL) 0.39 ± ± ± ± ± ± 0.02 Metatarsus length (MTL) 0.51 ± ± ± ± ± ± 0.02 Metatarsus width (MTW) 0.1± ± ± ± ± ± 0.00 Table 2. Morphometric measurement of Apis dorsata and Apis cerana in Dehradun. Morphological Characters Mean ± SE Apis dorsata Apis cerena Cantt City Rajpur Cantt City Rajpur Angle A Angle B Angle C Cubital index (CI) 0.01± ± ± ± ± ±0.00 DC 0.31± ± ± ± ± ±0.00 DD 0.53± ± ± ± ± ±0.00 CA 0.43± ± ± ± ± ±0.00 CB 0.21± ± ± ± ± ±0.00 Angle H Angle H Angle H Abou-Shaara, H.F. & Al-Ghamdi, A.A. (2012). Studies on wings symmetry and honey bee races discrimination by using standard a geometric morphometrics. Biotechnology in Animal Husbandry, 28 (3): Eid, K.S.A., Draz, K.A.A., EL-AW, M.A.M. & Abou-

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