Obsevasi perilaku berdasarkan umur pada lebah pekerja apis cerana
Abstract
Honey bee division of labor is characterized by temporal age polyethism, in which young workers remain in the hive and perform task there, whereas old workers perform outside task. Behavior in the western honey bee (Apis mellifera) has been extensively studied. However, not complete data was found in A. cerana, the eastern honey bee. Hence, the aims of this study were (i) to explore age polyethism and other behavior types and (ii) variations behavior of A. cerana within 25 days. Two colonies of A. cerana were used in this study. The first colony observed was carried out on July 19 - August 13, 2007 and the second was observed on May 17 - June 10, 2008. Newly emerged bees from the two colonies were labeled on the bee thorax using different colors and numbers. Observation of honey bee behavior was performed from 06.00 am-06.00 pm within interval of two hours for 25 days. The age of the bees that performed a certain behavior as well as the behavior duration was analyzed. The result showed that young A. cerana worker performed ten indoor age polyethism i.e. cell cleaning , nursing brood, nursing queen, receiving nectar from incoming forager, orientation flight, building comb, brood capped, honey capped, food storer and removing debris behavior within 1-10, 3-9, 6-13, 3-14, 4-16, 6-18, 7-13, 5-12, 10-22, 12-23 days, respectively. A. cerana outdoor tasks were ventilating, guarding, and foraging within 8-19, 14-23, and 18-25 ages, respectively. Age bee variations and overlap behavior were observed in the cell cleaning, nursing queen, and brood capped, honey capped, food storer, removing debris, ventilating, and guarding behaviors. Orientation flight behavior showed specific pattern having peak time between 14.00-16.00. Two others specific pattern behaviors also shown in guarding and foraging behavior having peak time between 06.00-08.00 and 16.00-18.00. Other A. cerana activities observed were chewing cap while the bee emerge, walking, resting, cell inspection, grooming (autogrooming and allogrooming), clustering, and fanning on honey cell.