Insect Products, Sociality, Medicine & Defense – Comprehensive Study Notes

Apitherapy, Honey Bees & Bee-Derived Products

  • Apitherapy = medical use of bee products (honey, propolis, venom, etc.).
  • Charles Darwin’s “Spinsters & Cats” anecdote
    • Spinsters → keep cats → cats eat rats → fewer rats eat bee hives → more bees → better crop pollination → abundant food for British troops → military success.
  • Karl von Frisch (WW II era)
    • Discovered the “language of the bees” – round, sickle & waggle dances.
    • Dances encode both distance & direction of food:
    • Round (≤10 yds)
    • Sickle/C-shaped (≈10–100 yds)
    • Waggle / figure-8 (>100 yds); angle to vertical = solar azimuth.
  • Langstroth’s Bee Space
    • L.L. Langstroth determined the optimal inter-frame gap (≈3⁄8 inch) that bees leave unfilled by propolis.
  • Pollination exclusives
    • Vanilla → pollinated only by Melipona bees (Mexico; Europeans later hand-pollinated).
    • Cacao (chocolate) → pollinated mainly by midges (Diptera).
  • Africanized Honey Bees (“killer bees”)
    • Brought to Brazil (1956, Warwick E. Kerr) for increased honey production; escaped & hybridized.
    • Traits: hyper-defensive, pursue victims long distances, yield less honey; best defense = RUN.

Termites & Eusociality

  • Order: Blattodea (formerly Isoptera); eusocial like bees but differ by:
    • Having both queen and king in mature colony.
    • Extremely long-lived reproductives (decades).
  • Castes: workers (♂ & ♀), soldiers, alates (winged reproductives).

Commercial Insect Products

  • Shellac
    • Produced by lac scale insect (Kerria lacca); Sanskrit “laksha” = 100 000 (massive swarms).
    • Major producer nation: India.
    • U.S. Food Defect Levels set by FDA.
  • Cochineal / Carmine dye
    • Crimson-red pigment from Dactylopius coccus (scale insect) → protects insect from ants.
    • Color = bright red; microscope (17th C.) revealed insect origin.
  • Sericulture (silk farming)
    • Bombyx mori silkworms reared on mulberry leaves.
    • Chinese legend: princess sipping tea saw cocoon unravel → discovered silk.
    • Silkworm eggs + mulberry leaves allegedly inspired Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.”

Entomophagy (Eating Insects)

  • Term: entomophagy.
  • 1983 – Robert Koch predicted insects would be staple protein on Mars missions.
  • High feed-conversion efficiency measured by ECI=weight gainedfood ingested×100\text{ECI}=\frac{\text{weight gained}}{\text{food ingested}}\times100; crickets (Order Orthoptera) among highest.
  • Grasshoppers edible & praised in major religious texts (Bible ×5); famed consumers: Barbary Pirates, David Livingstone, Head of U.S. Entomological Commission.

Plant–Insect Interactions

  • Galls (induced by aphids, midges, wasps)
    • Provide tannic acid, once processed into antidotes/medicines.
  • Pollination lures
    • Nectar (bribe); petal “landing strips.”
    • Pheromone mimicry – orchids imitate female insect pheromones → pseudocopulation.
    • Carrion odor – corpse flower attracts flies.

Insects in Medicine

  • Etymology: “medicine” from mead (fermented honey).
  • Amazonian “suture ants”
    • Soldier ant mandibles used as living surgical staples; body twisted off, jaws clamp wound.
  • Ebers Papyrus (≈1550 BCE) – Egyptian scroll cataloguing insect-based remedies.
  • HERD method for vaccine production
    • Utilises Lepidopteran caterpillars (Baculovirus expression).
  • Cantharidin
    • Vesicant from Spanish fly (Lytta vesicatoria), blister beetles, Colorado potato beetle.
    • Used by Greeks, Civil-War physicians; modern wart remover.

Defensive Strategies

  • Urticating hairs – barbed setae on caterpillars & tarantulas; cause dermatitis.
  • Aposematic coloration – bright reds/oranges/yellows signal toxicity.
  • Homotypism – insect resembles inedible object (stick insects, leaf katydids).
  • Vertebrate predation drives natural selection for better mimicry.
  • Batesian mimicry – harmless species imitates harmful (e.g.
    Viceroy vs. Monarch butterflies).
  • Bombardier beetle
    • Reactor glands mix hydroquinone & H<em>2O</em>2H<em>2O</em>2 → exothermic blast (≈100 °C) ejected at predators.
  • Reflex bleeding – joints exude toxic hemolymph (lady beetles, some grasshoppers).

Ant Biology & Pheromones

  • Pheromone categories
    1. Trail (foraging pathways)
    2. Alarm (defensive recruitment)
    3. Reproductive (sexual/queen control)
  • Specialised ants
    • Honeypot ant – workers engorge with nectar; living larders delicacy to humans.
    • Dracula ant – queens/workers feed on larval hemolymph (non-lethal “blood-letting”).
  • Genetics
    • Hymenoptera exhibit haplodiploidy: females = diploid (fertilised), males = haploid (unfertilised).
    • Consequence: male bees have no fathers but do have grandfathers.

Miscellaneous Facts & Figures

  • FDA sets “Food Defect Levels” (permissible insect fragments).
  • Microscope’s invention crucial for discovering cochineal’s insect origin.
  • Africanized bee introduction: 1956, escaped in 1957; only safe response is rapid retreat (>¼ mile).