Honey bee race

Last updated

Within biological taxonomy, a honey bee race would be an informal rank in the taxonomic hierarchy, below the level of subspecies. It has been used as a higher rank than strain, with several strains making up one race. [1] [2] Therefore, a strain (within the honey bee context) is a lower-level taxonomic rank used at the intraspecific level within a race of a subspecies. Strains are often seen as inherently artificial concepts, more usually within biology as characterized by a specific intent for genetic isolation, [3] however, within beekeeping circles, strain is more likely to be used to describe very minor differences throughout the same subspecies, such as the color ranges of A. m. carnica from brown to grey. [4] Within A. m. ligustica there are two races, the darker leather brown northern Italian bee from the Ligurian Alps region which was discovered to be resistant to acarine in the 1900s, while the other Italian bee race, from regions near Bologna and further south, was highly susceptible to acarine and within this race there are two color strains, the traditional Italian yellow and a rarer all-golden color. [5] [6]

Contents

Description

The races of the honey bee are classified into various named instances of an informal taxonomic rank of race—below that of subspecies—on the basis of shared genetic traits. The term "honey bee" means a bee of the species Apis mellifera which descend from bees that originated in Africa.

Differences in the colors of bees may be more pronounced in queens and drones; workers are much less easily differentiated by color. Drones are produced from the unfertilized eggs of queens and therefore their genetic characteristics depend entirely on those of the queen, whereas worker bees are produced from fertilized eggs. To make things even more complicated, a queen will normally mate multiple times, the spermatozoa from which are retained within her body, meaning that workers may only be half-sisters to each other, and their colors and other characteristics may differ.

In the Americas, there has been a great deal of interbreeding of subspecies, since all honey bees were imported at some point after 1492 and the subsequent Columbian Exchange. Among beekeepers, the term race has been used increasingly imprecisely, and is often used to refer to bee subspecies and hybrids, as well as subspecies divisions, more improperly.

There are also variations within subspecies (like within A. m. mellifera ), being little more than color variants that may not be correlated with distinct distributions; these are sometimes referred to as native races. These are often given their own names when described, but zoological nomenclature does not recognize these named "races" as valid, as only ranks of subspecies and above have formal scientific names in zoology.

Classifications

Based on morphological similarities and the separation of regions during and since the last Ice Age, there are five bee lineages: [7]

(Hybrids and bee breeds, even with known ancestry, such as the Buckfast bee, are not included within the bee lineages; they are crossings of the Apis mellifera subspecies and are not defined as subspecies in their own right)

The known subspecies within the lineage 'A' are:

The known subspecies within the lineage 'C' are:

The known subspecies within the lineage 'M' are:

The known subspecies within the lineage 'O' are:

The known subspecies within the lineage 'Y' [10] ) are:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buckfast bee</span> Breed of honey bee

The Buckfast bee is a breed of honey bee, a cross of many subspecies and their strains, developed by Brother Adam, who was in charge of beekeeping from 1919 at Buckfast Abbey in Devon in the United Kingdom. Breeding of the Buckfast bee is now done by breeders throughout Europe belonging to the Federation of European Buckfast Beekeepers (G.D.E.B.). This organization maintains a pedigree for Buckfast bees, originating from the time of Brother Adam.

<i>European dark bee</i> Subspecies of honey bee

The European dark bee is a subspecies of the western honey bee, evolving in central Asia and migrating into eastern and then northern Europe after the last ice age from 9,000BC onwards. Its original range stretched from the southern Urals in Russia through northern Europe and down to the Pyrenees. They are one of the two members of the 'M' lineage of Apis mellifera, the other being in western China. Traditionally they were called the Black German Bee, although they are now considered endangered in Germany. However today they are more likely to be called after the geographic / political region in which they live such as the British Black Bee, the Native Irish Honey Bee, the Cornish Black Bee and the Nordic Brown Bee, even though they are all the same subspecies, with the word “native” often inserted by local beekeepers, even in places where the bee is an introduced foreign species. It was domesticated in Europe and hives were brought to North America in the colonial era in 1622 where they were referred to as the English Fly by the Native Americans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Italian bee</span> Subspecies of honey bee

Apis mellifera ligustica is the Italian bee which is a subspecies of the western honey bee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caucasian honey bee</span> Subspecies of western honey bee

The Caucasian honey bee is a subspecies of the western honey bee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maltese honey bee</span> Subspecies of honey bee

The Maltese honey bee, Apis mellifera ruttneri, is a subspecies of the western honey bee, endemic to the Maltese islands which are situated in the Mediterranean Sea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">East African lowland honey bee</span> Subspecies of honey bee native to Africa

The East African lowland honey bee is a subspecies of the western honey bee. It is native to central, southern and eastern Africa, though at the southern extreme it is replaced by the Cape honey bee. This subspecies has been determined to constitute one part of the ancestry of the Africanized bees spreading through North and South America.

<i>Apis mellifera macedonica</i> Subspecies of Western honey bee

The Macedonian bee is a subspecies of the Western honey bee. It is found mainly in Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Northern Greece and other places in the Balkans as well. Originally this subspecies was described based on morphological characteristics by Friedrich Ruttner, as were the adami, cecropia and cypria subspecies.

Apis mellifera iberiensis, or the Spanish bee, is a western honey bee subspecies native to the Iberian Peninsula. It is also found on the Balearic Islands.

Varroa sensitive hygiene (VSH) is a behavioral trait of honey bees (Apis mellifera) in which bees detect and remove bee pupae that are infested by the parasitic mite Varroa destructor. V. destructor is considered to be the most dangerous pest problem for honey bees worldwide. VSH activity results in significant resistance to the mites.

Beekeeping is first recorded in Ireland in the seventh century. It has seen a surge in popularity in modern times, with the membership of beekeeping associations exceeding 4,500. The median average number of hives per beekeeper is three hives, while the average honey output per hive is 11.4 kg. The growth in the practice has occurred despite increased pressures on bees and beekeepers due to parasites, diseases and habitat loss.

Apis mellifera cypria(Cyprus honey bee) is a subspecies of the Western honey bee. Its' habitat is the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.

<i>Apis mellifera anatoliaca</i> Subspecies of honey bee

Apis mellifera anatoliaca is a subspecies of Apis mellifera.

Apis mellifera adansonii(Western African bee) is a subspecies of the Western honey bee with probably the largest range of Apis mellifera in Africa, belonging to the A (Africa) Lineage of honey bees. Originally identified by Michael Adansonin in his Histoire naturelle du Seneegal in 1757. Initially the name adsansonii was misapplied to A. m. scutelleta and in particular to the Africanised bees of South America.

Apis mellifera sossimai extending from the west of Ukraine centrally and southwards towards the Caucasus mountains. However in 2011 research from Russia conducted mtDNA analysis showing that the A. m. sossimai was not a separate subspecies, but only an ecotype of the Apis mellifera macedonica subspecies.

Apis mellifera taurica along the north central shores of the Black Sea, in the Crimea. However in 2011 research from Russia questioned the taxonomic status of A. m. taurica citing mtDNA analysis to the north and west of Crimea, which had shown that those regions did not have distinct subspecies, but that their honey bees were at the most ecotypes of previously known subspecies.

Apis mellifera siciliana is known by the common name of the Sicilian honey bee which is endemic to the island of Sicily, Italy in the Mediterranean sea. It belongs to the A Lineage of honey bees from Africa, with close genetic relations to Apis mellifera sahariensis, Apis mellifera intermissa, and Apis mellifera ruttneri.

Apis mellifera unicolor is known by the common name of the Madagascar honey bee, sometimes also called the Malagasy honey bee,, it is endemic to the island of Madagascar.

Apis mellifera syriaca is known by the common name of the Syrian honey bee, sometimes also called the Palestine honey bee.

Apis mellifera meda is known by the common names of the Median honey bee or the Iranian honey bee. Its range covers the non desert areas of most of Iran and Iraq, but also into southeastern Turkey, across northern Syria as far as the coast of the Mediterranean. Colonies have been observed in the Azarbaijan Iranian highlands at elevations up to 3000m. Initially based on morphometric evaluation, but then later confirmed with DNA analysis, they belong to the O Lineage of Apis mellifera.

References

  1. ↑ Gotoh, T.; Bruin, J.; Sabelis, M. W.; Menken, S. B. J. (1993). "Host race formation in Tetranychus urticae: Genetic differentiation, host plant preference, and mate choice in a tomato and a cucumber strain". Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata (Submitted manuscript). 68 (2): 171–178. doi:10.1111/j.1570-7458.1993.tb01700.x. S2CID   86180826.
  2. ↑ Ritchie, D. F.; Dittapongpitch, V. (1991), "Copper- and Streptomycin-resistant Strains and Host Differentiated Races of Xanthomonas campestris pv. vesicatoria in North Carolina" (PDF), Plant Disease, 75 (7): 733–736, doi:10.1094/pd-75-0733
  3. ↑ DIJKSHOORN, L.; URSING, B.M.; URSING, J.B. (2000). "Strain, clone and species: comments on three basic concepts of bacteriology". Journal of Medical Microbiology. 49 (5): 397–401. doi: 10.1099/0022-1317-49-5-397 . PMID   10798550.
  4. ↑ Mark L. Winston (1991). The Biology of the Honey Bee. Harvard University Press. p. 10. ISBN   978-0-674-07409-5.
  5. ↑ Brother, Adam (1987). Breeding the Honeybee (Paperback ed.). Peacock Press. pp. 96–98. ISBN   9780907908326.
  6. ↑ Api Expert (2014-06-14). "The Italian Honey Bee. Characteristics and recommendations". apiexpert.eu. Retrieved 6 November 2018.
  7. ↑ Gene flow within the M evolutionary lineage of Apis mellifera: role of the Pyrenees, isolation by distance and post-glacial re-colonization routes in western Europe. Apidologie 38 (2007) 141–155. 2 August 2006. p141
  8. ↑ Nawrocka, Anna; Kandemir, İrfan; Fuchs, Stefan; Tofilski, Adam (2017). "Computer software for identification of honey bee subspecies and evolutionary lineages" (PDF). Kandemir et al. 2011; Meixner et al. 2013. doi: 10.1007/s13592-017-0538-y .
  9. ↑ Michael S. Engel (1999). "The taxonomy of recent and fossil honey bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Apis)". Journal of Hymenoptera Research . 8: 165–196.
  10. ↑ "Genetics and ecological studies on honeybee's population in Sudan". Mogga 1988, El-Sarrag et al. 1992.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.