Activity of hypopharengeal gland in secreting honey-elaborating enzymes in Carniolan and Egyptian honeybees

In this study, the activity of invertase, glucose oxidase and diastase enzymes inhypopharengeal gland were determined for Egyptian and Carniolan honeybees. Threecolonies were chosen randomly from the population of each race for assaying theenzymes activity on three ages of worker bees: Newly emerged, 10-15 day old andforagers. The results show that the hypopharengeal gland expressed the three enzymesin different quantities in the three ages except invertase which could not be detected innewly emereged bees of Carniolan race. Generally, diastase is significantly moresecreted than invertase and glucose oxidase, and the secretion of newly emerged beesis significantly less pronounced than in nurse and foraging age. The significantdifferences between the two races were obviously expressed in foragers for invertaseand diastase enzyme, and in nurse bees for glucose oxidase in favor of Carniolan race,whereas the difference was significantly higher in newly emerged bees for Diastaseand invertase in Egyptian bees. This result establishes different views of the secretiontrend of the three enzymes in the two honeybee races, which may considered as racespecificcharacteristic.