Factors influencing wing size and body weight variation in the western honeybee

The patterns of wing size and body weight variation have been studied in worker bees, queens, and drones of the western honeybee. The influences of physiological states and ecological situations on the weight of the body and its parts and on the filling of the digestive tract have been analyzed. The results show that the differences in body weight between worker bees, queens, and drones do not correspond to differences in wing size between them. It is noted that worker bees, with their relatively small but strongly varying body weight, have acquired relatively large wings in the course of species phylogeny, a process accompanied by functional and morphophysiological differentiation of the members of bee families.