Braula
Encyclopedia
Braula is a genus of flies
(Diptera) in the family Braulidae
or bee lice. These are very unusual flies, wingless and flattened, and barely recognizable as Diptera. Braula coeca Nitzsch is a pest of honey bees. The larvae tunnel through the wax
honeycomb
and the adults are found on the bodies of honey bees. There is some debate as to whether the bee louse causes damage to the honey bee. These flies sometimes can be found at places where bees congregate such as flowers or salt licks, waiting to grab onto hosts from uninfested nests.
Braula is cosmopolitan and about 1.6 mm in length.
Fly
True flies are insects of the order Diptera . They possess a pair of wings on the mesothorax and a pair of halteres, derived from the hind wings, on the metathorax...
(Diptera) in the family Braulidae
Braulidae
Braulidae, or bee lice, is a flies family that contains eight species in two genera, Braula and Megabraula. These are very unusual flies, wingless and flattened, and barely recognizable as Diptera....
or bee lice. These are very unusual flies, wingless and flattened, and barely recognizable as Diptera. Braula coeca Nitzsch is a pest of honey bees. The larvae tunnel through the wax
Wax
thumb|right|[[Cetyl palmitate]], a typical wax ester.Wax refers to a class of chemical compounds that are plastic near ambient temperatures. Characteristically, they melt above 45 °C to give a low viscosity liquid. Waxes are insoluble in water but soluble in organic, nonpolar solvents...
honeycomb
Honeycomb
A honeycomb is a mass of hexagonal waxcells built by honey bees in their nests to contain their larvae and stores of honey and pollen.Beekeepers may remove the entire honeycomb to harvest honey...
and the adults are found on the bodies of honey bees. There is some debate as to whether the bee louse causes damage to the honey bee. These flies sometimes can be found at places where bees congregate such as flowers or salt licks, waiting to grab onto hosts from uninfested nests.
Braula is cosmopolitan and about 1.6 mm in length.
Species
- Braula coeca NitzschChristian Ludwig NitzschChristian Ludwig Nitzsch was a German zoologist. He is best remembered for his approach to classifying birds on the basis of their feather tract distributions or pterylosis of their young.-Career:...
, 1818 - Braula kohli Schmitz, 1914
- Braula orientalis Òròsi Pál, 1939
- Braula pretoriensis Òròsi Pál, 1939
- Braula schmitzi Òròsi Pál, 1939
External links
- Braula coeca, bee louse on the University of FloridaUniversity of FloridaThe University of Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a campus in Gainesville, Florida. The university traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906...
/ Institute of Food and Agricultural SciencesInstitute of Food and Agricultural SciencesThe University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences is a federal-state-county partnership dedicated to developing knowledge in agriculture, human and natural resources, and the life sciences, and enhancing and sustaining the quality of human life by making that information...
Featured Creatures website - Photograph of a bee louse