Drones of Apis dorsata (Fabricius 1793) congregate under the canopy of tall emergent trees in Borneo

Apis dorsata drone flights, collection of semen from everted endophalli and instrumental insemination of queens

“…This finding has not been reported previously. Although Koeniger et al (1994) did not specifically mention this phenomenon, the same conclusion can be drawn from their data, according to which the drones flew on 1 January between 18:27-18:40, and on 14 January between 18:30-18:52.…”

“…Drone flights were observed over 9 days (Koeniger and Wijayagunasekera, 1976); 2 days (Koeniger et al, 1988), 4 days (Rinderer et al, 1993); 5 days (Tan et al, 1999) or 10 days (Koeniger et al, 1994). We observed drone flights over 2 months, which enabled us to detect changes in the start of drone flights relative to the progress of the season and increase in daylength.…”

Variance in spermatozoa number among Apis dorsata drones and among Apis mellifera drones

“…One sample of drones from one colony was caught with an insect net nearby the comb which hung at a height of about 4 m. The other sample of drones was collected over 3 consecutive years (February 2001(February , 2002(February and 2003 at a drone congregation area (DCA) by lifting a queen dummy (a 3.4 mm piece of black pencil with 1 mg 9OD) to which we had attached a thread coated with insect glue (Koeniger et al, 1994). Drones whose wings got coated by the glue after touching During dissection of the vesiculae seminales, the endophallus appears either opalescent, which indicates that mucus or sperm had entered, or transparent, which indicates that all spermatozoa remained in the vesiculae seminales.…”

Drone competition at drone congregation areas in four Apis species

“…Drones of Apis cerana (Punchihewa et al, 1990) and of Apis dorsata (Koeniger et al, 1994b) seem to fly to large prominent trees as a landmark for orientation and assemble near or under the branches, while A. koschevnikovi drones assemble under the canopy of lower trees (reviewed in . Drones of each species fly at their species specific time of day (Koeniger and Wijayagunasekera, 1976;review Otis et al, 2000;review Koeniger and Koeniger, 2000).…”