Siriwat Wongsiri

Maejo University | Maecho University

Abstract Nowadays the most common subspecies of western honeybee or European honey bee (Apis mellifera) have 28 subspecies around the world. The subspecies are divided into four major branches were confirmed by mitochondrial DNA analysis. African subspecies belong to branch A, north western European subspecies branch M, south western European subsp...

Domestication of animal species is often associated with a reduction in genetic diversity. The honey bee, Apis mellifera Linnaeus, 1758, has been managed by beekeepers for millennia for both honey and wax production and for crop pollination. Here we use both microsatellite markers and sequence data from the mitochondrial COI gene to evaluate geneti...

While honey bee workers have functional ovaries, worker reproduction is rare in colonies with a laying queen. An important mechanism by which functional worker sterility is enforced is worker policing—any behaviour of workers that prevents other workers from reproducing. In honey bees, policing workers identify worker-laid eggs and eat them. Polici...

The majority parasitic bee mites of Thailand in genus Tropilaelaps are infesting colonies of native bees (Apis dorsata) and introduced bees (A. mellifera). The investigation aims to study morphological and genetic variation of Tropilaelaps mites infected different hosts. Adult mites were collected from honey bee brood throughout Thailand. Tradition...

Abstract Nowadays the most common subspecies of western honeybee or European honey bee (Apis mellifera) have 28 subspecies around the world. The subspecies are divided into four major branches were confirmed by mitochondrial DNA analysis. African subspecies belong to branch A, north western European subspecies branch M, south western European subsp...

Thai stingless bees, those are very important pollinators, have species diversity. Currently, classification and identification of Thai stingless bees should be revised for validity of taxonomic data. The research was based on two morphometric analysis, performed in 28 colonies of Thai stingless bees. Standard and geometric were generated on wing i...

The purpose of this study was to determine grooming behavior efficacy of Apis dorsata, Thai commercial (A. mellifera, Italian honey bee hybrids), and Primorsky honey bees (A. mellifera) in killing the mite species Euvarroa sinhai. Ten A. dorsata, 15 Thai commercial and 15 Primorsky colonies were used to compare efficacy in their grooming behavior r...

Ratna Thapa is a lecturer at the School of Science, Mae Fah Luang University, Chiang Rai, Thailand and Professor Siriwat Wongsiri currently holds the Baqshan Chair of Bee Research at the Faculty of Food Science and Agriculture, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The existence of two species of dwarf honey bees has only recently generally been accepted. Since they coexist in many locations, this leads to the question of how they differ so that they can both be present. This article presents a comparison of the biology of these species, particularly as they occur in Thailand. We do this to highlight what we...

Wild bee eater birds have been offered food and water as a traditional religious custom in many communities in Asia. Just as the name reveals, bee-eaters predominantly eat huge number of insect, pests and other invertebrates e.g. rice pests, freshwater crabs and snails. All insectivorous birds can eat harmful insects to keep pest populations under...

We investigated the relationship between pseudoscorpions in 13 colonies of Apis cerana and their predatory behaviour toward varroa mites, wax moth larvae, dead honey bee larvae and psocids in the laboratory. Our survey showed that the high numbers of pseudoscorpions in strong colonies suggest the availability of bee larvae as food. The presence of...

1. The giant honey bee, Apis dorsata, is a keystone pollinator. The species is heavily hunted throughout Thailand. Furthermore, forest clearing, widespread use of pesticides and proliferation of street lighting (which attracts bees, often resulting in their death) are likely to have significant impacts on population viability. 2. We examined the re...

Geometric morphometry was used to characterize 73 Apis dorsata colonies collected from 31 different localities in five major geographic regions of mainland Thailand. We measured 19 easily identified landmarks from the digitized images of the right forewing of 10 worker bees from each colony (730 bees in total); thus, avoiding the confounding variat...

The giant honey bee (Apis dorsata) is a keystone pollinator within Asian lowland forests. Across its range, A. dorsata populations are impacted by heavy hunting pressure and habitat disturbance. These pressures have the potential to significantly impact the genetic structure of populations, particularly the ability of queens to find a large number...

Allele frequencies, number of alleles, number of effective alleles, and observed (H o) and expected heterozygosity (H e) at four loci in A. dorsata populations within six aggregated colonies in Thailand (supplementary material)

The directional information encoded in the waggle dances of absconding colonies of Apis florea shows how different sites are advertised during decision-making. Colonies of A. florea were observed from the inception of absconding until the swarm settled at a new nest site. The number of waggle dancers at the beginning of the absconding sequence was...

The histological structure of the ovary of queens of the Yemeni honeybee race, Apis mellifera jemenitica, was studied in the third and fifth larval instars, 1-, 2- and 3-day old pupae and newly emerged imago queen bees. Queen bee larvae were fed with an intensive royal food throughout the larval stage to avoid compounding regression to worker statu...

Virgin queens of A. florea were produced in 10 queenless colonies yielding 106 queens with an average of 10.6 ± 2.99 queen cells per colony and a success rate of 65.23 ± 0.14% virgin queens. Spermatozoa were collected directly from the seminal vesicles. Thirty queens were inseminated, each with a pool of about 3.12 × 106 spermatozoa derived from 8...

Unequal relatedness among workers in polyandrous honey bee colonies provides the potential for reproductive conflict during emergency queen rearing. Adult workers can increase their inclusive fitness by selectively rearing their full-sisters as queens. We investigated the paternity of emergency queens in two colonies of Apis florea using five micro...

Morphometrics is a relatively powerful analytical tool for the identification of distinct species and subspecies of bees. Typically, within honey bees (Apidae: Apis), morphometric analysis has been used to differentiate the groups and species by using multiple body characteristics. However, these procedures are time-consuming for the suitable prepa...

We measured the repellent effects of plant resins against the weaver ants, Oecophylla smaragdina. The resins were the sticky bands of the dwarf honeybees, Apis florea and A. andreniformis, propolis of the Western honeybee, A. mellifera and the nest entrance tubes of the stingless bees, Tetrigona apicalis, Lepidotrigona terminata, and Tetragonula co...

Intensive surveys of an area of woodland in Phitsanulok province, Thailand, revealed 15 colonies of Apis florea. The colonies had a highly aggregated spatial distribution (Standardized Morisita's Index of Dispersion = 0.59). Microsatellite analysis based on 5 loci showed that no colonies were related as mother-daughter, suggesting that unrelated co...

There is evidence that people discount food more steeply than money, suggesting that primary or consumable reinforcers lose value quickly, whereas conditioned or nonconsumable reinforcers lose value slowly. In the present study, discounting rates of baht (unstable currency) and rice (preservable food) were compared during a period of unstable econo...

The small dwarf honey bee, Apis andreniformis, is a rare and patchily distributed Apis spp. and is one of the native Thai honey bees, yet little is known about its biodiversity. Thirty (27 Thai and 3 Malaysian) and 37 (32 Thai and 5 Malaysian) colonies of A. andreniformis were sampled for morphometric and genetic analysis, respectively. For morphom...

The structure of the hypopharyngeal glands of Apis andreniformis and Apis florea workers was studied. Glands from pupae, nurse bees and foraging bees were investigated using paraffin and staining techniques. Periodic Acid Schiff’s reagent (PAS) and Ninhydrin Schiff's reagent were used for the histochemical study of carbohydrates and proteins respec...

Honey bee workers are able to distinguish queen-laid eggs from worker-laid eggs, and remove (‘police’) worker-laid eggs. The cue that police workers use is as yet unidentified but is likely to be a chemical signal. This signal benefits queens for it ensures their reproductive monopoly. It also benefits collective workers because it allows them to r...

Apis mellifera was imported to Thailand approximately 60 years ago, but the subspecies that contributed to honey bee populations in this country are unknown. We collected 476 colonies from North, Central, Northeast and South Thailand and used PCR-RFLP and direct DNA sequencing to identify mitochondrial lineages and subspecies present. Three common...

Genetic diversity and population differentiation of the giant honey bee (Apis dorsata) in Thailand were examined. Six PCR-RFLP mitotypes were generated from digestion of the COI-COII, Cytb-tRNAser, ATPase6-8, and lrRNA genes with Dra I and Hin fI. Low genetic diversity (h=0.074, π=0.032%) and a lack of genetic population differentiation between A....

We examined worker reproduction in queenless and queenright Apis cerana colonies to determine if they are parasitized by workers from other nests. The results demonstrate that 2-6% of workers in queenright colonies are from another nest (non-natal), but these workers are not statistically more likely to have activated ovaries than natal workers, an...

The structure of the hypopharyngeal glands of Apis andreniformis and Apis florea workers was studied. Glands from pupae, nurse bees and foraging bees were investigated using paraffin and staining techniques. Periodic Acid Schiffs reagent (PAS) and Ninhydrin Schiffs reagent were used for the histochemical study of carbohydrates and proteins respecti...

alpha-Glucosidase (JHGase I) was purified from a Japanese subspecies of eastern honeybee (Apis cerana japonica) as an electrophoretically homogeneous protein. Enzyme activity of the crude extract was mainly separated into two fractions (component I and II) by salting-out chromatography. JHGase I was isolated from component I by further purification...

Honeybee (Apis) workers cannot mate, but retain functional ovaries. When colonies have lost their queen, many young workers begin to activate their ovaries and lay eggs. Some of these eggs are reared, but most are not and are presumably eaten by other workers (worker policing). Here we explore some of the factors affecting the reproductive success...

The queen of a honeybee colony has a reproductive monopoly because her workers' ovaries are normally inactive and any eggs that they do lay are eaten by their fellow workers. But if a colony becomes queenless, the workers start to lay eggs, stop policing and rear a last batch of males before the colony finally dies out. Here we show that workers of...

In the arboreal habitat of Apis florea one of the dominant insectivorous predators is the weaver ant, Oecophylla smaragdina. The main mechanism of A. florea to protect its nest against ants and other crawling arthropods are “barriers” of sticky material (sticky bands) which the bees build around the branches and all structures which connect the com...

Multivariate morphometric analyses were performed on 2923 individual worker bees from 184 colonies representing 103 localities across the full distributional area of Apis florea Fabricius 1787 from Vietnam and southeastern China to Iran and Oman (~7000 km). Morphologically A. florea is unequivocally separable from A. andreniformis. Comparisons of g...

Thailand is home to 12 species of birds whose diet includes large numbers of honey bees. One genus, the bee-eaters (Merops), eat huge numbers of insect pests as well as other small invertebrates. All insectivorous birds consume harmful insects helping to keep pest populations under control in agricultural ecosystems. However, bee-eaters also consum...

Ascosphaera apis is a fungal pathogen causing Chalkbrood disease in honey bee larvae. Chalkbrood is most frequent during damp conditions. Infected larvae turn chalky white color, become hard, and then turn black. It can be regarded as "the most widespread infectious disease" in Thailand and this has led to economic loss in apiculture. A. apis strai...

The hygienic behavior of honey bees (Apis spp) is a mechanism of disease and mite resistance. Hygienic honey bees detect, uncap, and remove diseased or parasitized brood, including the parasites, from the colony. This study compared the hygienic behavior of honey bees commercially available in Thailand to that of ARS Russian honey bees, which are k...

Sixty three queens of Apis mellifera were inseminated each with about 8 million spermatozoa from either 1 A. mellifera drone, 8 A. cerana, 5 A. dorsata or 20 A. florea drones. Spermatozoa were collected from vesiculae seminales, diluted in buffer and re-concentrated at 1,000 g for 10 minutes. Between 1.4% and 2.8% of the spermatozoa reached the spe...

The conservation of biodiversity could be the greatest challenge that mankind has ever faced. Honey bees are an important part of that biodiversity and this paper discusses honey bee diversity and its importance for the South East Asian community. It also describes the current situation of the introduced species, Apis mellifera, and its effect on t...

This paper develops a frequency-based analysis of every open reading frame (ORF) in the honey bee (Apis mellifera) genome using a set of PERL algorithms which were developed to identify novel exonic regions. Using the actual amino acid abundances for these regions, this ORF profiles approach found a background Poisson distribution of randomly arran...

Morphometric analyses of Apis florea F. in Thailand were carried out in order to detect differences within this species. The nine body parts selected for analysis were: proboscis, antenna, forewing, hindwing, hind leg, the third and sixth sternites, and the third and fourth tergites. Twenty-two characters, consisting of widths, lengths or angles, w...

An expressed sequence tag (EST) library was established from the hypopharyngeal glands of Apis cerana. Sixty-six recombinant clones, possessing inserts > 500 bp, were randomly selected and unidirectional sequenced. Forty-two of these (63.6%) were identified as homologues of Major Royal Jelly Proteins families 1, 2, 3, and 4 of A. mellifera (AmMRJP)...

In this paper, the development of an experimental procedure to examine the human elbow joint motion is described. The experiment will be set up to measure the amount of forces and range of motion of the elbow joint. The experiment will be useful in monitoring patients who underwent elbow joint operation.

Idealistic honey hunters believe that if the honey harvest form the wild bees is sold, they will not be able to harvest more honey in the subsequent years, because the honey is a free natural gift produced by the forest goddess. It is intended to help and cure human health and cannot be sold, but can be shared with friends and relatives.

J e r z y W o y k e 1 , C h a n p e n C h a n c h a o 2 , S i r i w a t W o n g s i r i 2 , J e r z y W i l d e 3 , M a r i a W i l d e 4 S u m m a r y The investigations were conducted in spring 1999 in Jugedi, Chitwan, Nepal, and in spring 1992 and 2000 in Bangkok, Thailand. The length and width of 722 eggs was measured. Of those, 279 eggs were f...

(without abstract)

Colonies of Apis andreniformis and A. florea, had highly significant tendencies to be located near nests of their own species in a southeastern Thailand agro-ecosystem. A. andreniformis and A. florea chose similar nest sites, but the spatial correlations of their nesting sites were significantly negative, indicating that colonies may avoid areas co...

Worker policing (any behavior performed by workers that reduces reproduction by other workers) via egg eating has been observed in three species of honey bee (Apis mellifera, A. cerana, and A. florea). The maternity of drones of the giant honey bee A. dorsata (n = 660) was determined using DNA microsatellite analysis. None carried markers from the...

Workers of the Asian hive bee, Apis cerana, are shown to have relatively high rates of worker ovary activation. In colonies with an active queen and brood nest, 1-5% of workers have eggs in their ovarioles. When A. cerana colonies are dequeened, workers rapidly activate their ovaries. After 4 days 15% have activated ovaries and after 6 days, 40%. A...

Apis florea is a single-combed, open-nesting, dwarf honeybee indigenous to Asia. In common with other species of this genus, A. florea is highly polyandrous, and is therefore predicted to curtail worker reproduction by mutual policing mechanisms that keep worker reproduction at an extremely low level. Policing mechanisms could involve destruction o...

Differentiation of the honey bee (Apis cerana) populations, collected from north, north-east, the central region and peninsular Thailand, and Samui island was examined using a polymorphism of three microsatellite loci (A28, A107 and A113). The results indicated high genetic diversity in the mainland (north, central, north-east and peninsular Thaila...

Traditional beekeeping with the indigenous honey bee, Apis cerana, began in the coconut plantation areas on Samui Island in southern Thailand but there are no records to confirm when it started1. However, literature preserved in the bee museum of the Apiculture Research Institute in Beijing, China, shows that Thai (Tai tribe) beekeeping began about...

Four colonies of Apis cerana F. were analyzed with DNA markers to determine the degree of polyandry in this species. The average observed paternity frequency was 18.0 (range, 14-27), the average worker relatedness 0.29, and the average effective paternity frequency 12.0. A. cerana is therefore similar to A. mellifera and other species of Apis in th...

Thai people, especially those from northern and northeastern Thailand, have a long cultural history of eating insects. Though human consumption of insects is common throughout the world, the northern and northeastern ethnic groups in Thailand are remarkable for their large-scale consumption of brood of honey bees (Apis spp., Apidae) (Sangpradub 198...

Samples of Apis cerana were collected from 44 locations in 12 regions of Thailand and peninsular Malaysia. Morphometric measurements were made on 58 characters. Statistical analysis showed that these samples could be separated into four groups: northern to central Thailand, southern Thailand to the end of the Malaysian peninsula, Samui Island and,...

Using four polymorphic microsatellite loci, we found that four Apis andreniformis queens collected in Thailand each mated at least 10–20 times, producing an average relatedness, g ww, of workers of 0.30 ± 0.007, and an average effective number of matings of 9.1 ± 2.2. The degrees of polyandry and intra-colonial genetic relatedness in A. andreniform...

Seven species of honey bees are presently recognized in the genus Apis, of which four are indigenous to Thailand with the European honey bee (Apis mellifera) as an exotic fifth species. The honey bees native to Thailand include the Asian hive bee, Apis cerana; the little or dwarf honey bee, Apis florea; the small honey bee, Apis andreniformis; and...

Pupae and adults of 4 Apis dorsata F. colonies from northern Thailand were collected in liquid nitrogen. DNA was extracted, and microsatellite genotypes at 3 loci determined for 42-194 workers per colony. From these data, the queen genotype was inferred, and the number of males with which each queen mated deduced. These A. dorsata queens mated with...

Complete descriptions using a variety of measurements are provided for nests of Apis andreniformis from south-eastern Thailand, Sichuan and Hunan Provinces of China, and Palawan, Philippines and Apis florea from south-eastern Thailand and Hunan Province of China. Overall, the single-comb nest of A andreniformis has a very different structure from t...

DNA was extracted from worker and drone pupae of each of five colonies of the dwarf honey bee Apis florea. Polymerase chain reactions (PCR) were conducted on DNA extracts using five sets of primers known to amplify microsatellite loci in A. mellifera. Based on microsatellite allele distributions, queens of the five colonies mated with at least 5–14...

Morphological descriptions using measurements common to honey bee taxonomy are provided for Apis andreniformis Smith (1858) from southeastern Thailand and Palawan, Philippines and Apis florea Fabricius (1787) from southeastern Thailand. Overall, A andreniformis has a very different morphology from the sympatric A florea and from all other well-desc...

Workers in a wild in situ colony of the dwarf honey bee, Apis florea, were observed undertaking the following behavior: liquid foraging, pollen foraging, guarding, stinging, fanning and wagging abdomen. Bees of each behavioral class were separately collected and frozen. Collections were made over a period of 10 days. Random samples of brood and wor...

The survival of adult female Tropilaelaps clareae of unknown age on caged adult workers of Apis mellifera was investigated in ambient conditions during the rainy season in northern Thailand and in an incubator maintained at 35°C and 60% RH. Under both conditions, a small percentage of T. clareae survived for three days. A similar experiment using a...

A comparison of the structure of the cervical lobes of the drone honey bee endophallus in 5 species of Apis, using scanning electron microscopy, provided evidence of reproductive isolation in the genus. Structural similarities suggest three evolutionary groups: (1) A. mellifera and A. cerana; (2) A. florea and A. andreniformis; (3) A dorsata. A. do...

At Chanthaburi, Thailand, four species of Apis, A. andrenlformis, A. florea, A. cerana and A. dorsata, are sympatric. Observations were carried out on three wild colonies of each species on various days in February 1992. The daily drone flight periods were only partially specific: A. andreniformis from 12.15 h to 13.45 h; A. florea from 14.00 h to...

The occurrence of laying workers in Apis florea colonies in Thailand was observed. Laying workers were active in 'hopelessly queenless' colonies, and deposited eggs in large numbers even in colonies rearing queens. Laying worker brood disappeared after virgin queens emerged, well before they started to lay eggs. Thirty eggs were collected from each...

The sympatric congeners Apis dorsata, A. cerana, A. andreniformis and A. florea were observed foraging for pollen on the noctumally-dehiscent king palm (Archontophoenix alexandrea). The larger A. dorsata and A. cerana foraged earliest but in low numbers, presumably exploiting the resource at its most productive time. The smaller A. andreniformis an...