Question

The exotic variety of honey bee grown in India is …………………………………………….

Answer 1

Hint: Honey bees are social insects and genus Apis and are the primary source of honey and natural wax. They are a common cultivated insect for various economic purposes.

Complete answer:
Honey bees belong to the genus Apis. There are a total of forty-three subspecies are recognised and out of which only eight are surviving species. Honey bees are known for construction of perennial nests or colonies from wax. Their colonies are also known as hives.
A colony or hive of honey bee shows organisational social order between the insects. Each hive contains a fertile female which is known as the queen bee. In addition to the queen bee, a few drones or fertile males and some sterile bees are present. The sterile bees are also known as workers.
Worker bees work together to find food and produce honey and wax. They are also responsible for looking after the eggs and nourishing the larvae. The eggs are laid in a cell contained in a wax honeycomb. The queen is responsible for laying and fertilizing the eggs. The drones develop from unfertilized eggs and are haploid individuals.
Honey bees are cultivated for production of honey and wax. The best known honey bee variety is the western honeybee, Apis mellifera and it is most commonly domesticated for economic production of honey and crop pollination. The species, Apis cerana or the eastern honey bee is the other domesticated variety of honey bees. Some other species of honey bees produce and store honey and are domesticated by humans. In India, the exotic variety of honey bee grown is Apis cerena indica.

Additional information
Honey bees of all varieties live on the nectar and pollen. When they carry the nectar back to the hive or colony, their bodies are capable of breaking the complex sucrose of the nectar into simpler sugars such as fructose and glucose.

Note: Various species indigenous and exotic species of honey bees are used to produce honey and Apis cerena indica is the exotic variety of honey bee grown in India. In addition to using honey bees for production of honey and beeswax, they are also extensively used for commercial pollination of fruit and vegetables crops.