Study on morphometric traits of the Albanian bees

MANJOLA KULIÇI^1*, KRISTAQ KUME²

¹Internacional University of Tirana, Tirana, Albania

²Aleksander Moisiu University, Durrës, Albania

*Coresponding author Email: manjolakulici@yahoo.com

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Abstract

19 morphological features, measured on 3600 worker bee samples collected from twenty different regions of Albania were used for the identification and characterization the Albanian bee. The measurement was done using Scan Photo technique (SPT) and Photoshop program, in accordance with the standard method. The average values of the measured parameters were: Proboscis length (PL) (6.55mm), Forewing length (FWL) (9.32mm), Forewing width (FWW) (3.195mm), Hind wing length (HWL) (6.481mm), Hind wing width (HWW) (1.847mm), Femur length (FL) (2.575mm), Tibia length (TL) (3.212mm), Basitarsus length (BL) (2.094mm),Basitarsus width (BW) (1.217mm), Number of hooks (HA) (20.558), Sternite 3 longitudinal (LS3) (2.776mm), Wax mirror of sternite 3 longitudinal (WL) (1.344mm), Wax mirror of sternite 3 transversal (WT) (2.390mm), Distance between wax mirrors of sternite 3(WD) (0.321mm), Tergitite 4 longitudinal (T4) (2.092mm), Tomentum (TOM A) (0.782mm), Width of the dark stripe between tomentum and posterior rim of tergite 4 (TOM B) (0.507mm), Length of hairs on tergite 5 (HLT5) (0.290mm) and Cubital index (CI) (2.779mm). Referring to the values ​​of coefficient of variations, features can be classified into two groups: (i) PL, FWL, FWW, HWL, HWW, TL, BL, BW, HA, LS3, WL, WT, T4 features with low level of variation (2.1% – 6.0%); (ii) FL, WD, TOM A, TOM B, HLT5 features with a high level of variation (12.2% – 36.7%). CI is feature with moderate variation (15.3%). The observed values ​​of the above parameters show that, although during the last twenty years the genes migration processes in the Albanian bee population have been uncontrolled, their classification into the group of Apis mellifera carnica, continues to be a significant hypothesis.

Keywords – Honeybee, Apis mellifera, Morphological features, Scan Photo method.