| Temperature is a key environmental factor for honeybee ontogenesis. The development of eggs, the initiation stage, is especially sensitive to the temperature variation.In order to clarify the effect of temperature on eggs’development of the honeybee, we investigated the fertilized eggs of Apis cerana cerana and Apis mellifera ligustica. Both of them were breed under the conditions of RH75%±5% and 35℃, then under the conditions of RH75%±5% and 40℃ for 1-9 h in incubators, and systematically measured the hatching rate and the development periods of these eggs. To clarify the effect of temperature on honeybee embryos’development, this paper a paraffin section technical method for honeybee embryos was explored and established. The embryonic microphotographs of representative development stages of Apis cerana cerana which were treated at 35℃ were obtained.The results were as follows:(1) Both Apis cerana cerana and Apis mellifera ligustica fertilized eggs were seriously affected by 40℃ treatment. The longer the eggs were treated, the more affect on the eggs were. Regarding the eggs age and treatment time, some differences existed between Apis cerana cerana and Apis mellifera ligustica fertilized eggs.(2) The treatment at 40℃ had fair effection on Apis cerana cerana and Apis mellifera ligustica fertilized eggs. All eggs aged 0-18 h no matter of Apis cerana cerana or Apis mellifera ligustica died after the 40℃ treatment, except for a small part of those aged 6 h,12 h and 18 h hatched after 1-hour-treatment, whose hatching rates were 18.75%,32.35% and 79.31% respectively. It was found that the 24 h-old and 66 h-old eggs also had a significant lower hatching rate at 40℃ compared with normal level.(3) After treatment at 40℃, the development period of fertilized eggs both Apis cerana cerana and Apis mellifera ligustica were generally prolonged. It was longer than 67.4 h which was the result of treatment at 35℃ for Apis cerana cerana, and turned out to be longer than 69.9 h for Apis mellifera ligustica.(4) By studying the fertilized eggs of Apis cerana cerana, this paper improved the normal paraffin section technique, and established a paraffin section technical method for honeybee embryos.(5) A lot of embryonic microphotographs of representative development stages fertilized eggs of Apis cerana cerana which completed their development at constant temperature 35℃ were obtained including the stages of cleavage, blastoderm formation, germ band and blastoderm membrane formation, germinal layer formation, embryonic segmentation and organ formation. |
