Avaliação da agressividade de abelhas Apis mellifera no município de Sousa – PB.

Abstract

The genus Apis is composed of four species and among these there are severas subspecies. In Brazil, beekeeping has suHered much in the first year with the socalled Africanized bees, because there was no appropriate techniques to manage them. The objective of this study is to evaluate the aggressiveness of Africanized bees as a function of time, temperature and relative humidity, to suggest the best time of management of hives in the city of Sousa - PB. The survey was conducted in the municipality of Sousa - PB. We used 10 colonies of Após mellifera, where in each hive chosen randomly testing was performed with 3 repetitions of aggression during the hours of 07:00 to 10:00 hours, from 12:00 to 14:00 hours and 15:00 to 17:00. Aggression was measured by obsewing the time infuriating bees, time to first sting to occur in a suede and the number of stings left in suede, the number of bees attacked. the distante that bees chase the handler. and time to calm the bees in the colony. Based on the data was determined the mean and standard deviation of the measured values in hives and their reps, and apiary. The temperature is shown about 38 ' C. The relative humidity ranged from 33.20 t 0.79 to 36.60 t 1 .51%. The mean infuriating bees in the colonies examined ranged from 1.67 t 0.58 to 6.00 t 1.00 seconds. The average time to occur in the lst suede sting in the colonies analyzed ranged from 2.33 t 0.58 to 1 1.33 t 1 .53 seconds. The time between 15:00 to 17:00 hours had the highest average value for the number of stings left in suede. There are a greater number of bees caught in time from 1 5:00 to 17:00 hours, with a pronounced variation among the colonies, ranging from 9 to 120 bees. It was observed that from 1 5:00 to 17:00 hours the chase is getting greater to reach 412.30 meters. The average time to peace the caem bees in the colonies ranged from 9.89 to 67 t 23 t 11.28 minutes. Finally, taking into account all the aspects considered among the tomes evaluated, 7:00 to 10:00 hours shows a less aggressive bees, which suggest that this is the most appropriate time for the management of hives.