engleski

Number of spermatozoa in spermatheca of honey bee (Apis mellifera carnica) queens 0 and 1 year old reared in the conditions of continental Croatia

One of the key factors for the success of honey bee colony is a productive queen. The queen mate in the air with several drones during one or more nuptial flights and store spermatozoa inthe spermatheca. In our research we investigated the effect of the queens’ age on the number of spermatozoa and the diameter of spermatheca. In total, 137 queens were dissected, from which 71 young queens (Q0) and 66 queens that were in production colonies for one year (Q1). In the spermatheca of Q0 group, we found 3.96 million, and in Q1 group 2.64 million of spermatozoa in average, which is significant difference (p<0.05). Positive correlation was foundbetween the queens’ weight and the size of spermatheca (r=0.45). Our results have shown that the number of sperm in spermatheca declines with the age of queen.

Apis mellifera carnica ; spermatheca ; queen

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