Wing morphometry of Slovak lines of Apis mellifera carnica honeybee population

Abstract

Samples of honeybee workers and drones forewings from 16 hives belonging to various lines of Slovak Carniolan bee kept by queen breeders in Slovakia were taken in year 2013 to perform wing morphometry measurements. The Dawino, complex wing morphometry method, has been applied for workers samples and measurements of Cubital index for drones samples. Worker bees samples showed similarity to Carniolan bee standard from 50 to 84 % in 15 cases, on sample was out of standard. Cubital index of drones samples comply with a carnica bee standard in 14 cases, 2 samples were out of the range. The future of use wing morphometry for detection of hybridization in A. m. carnica populations is discussed.

Keywords

• Apis mellifera carnica
• workers
• drones
• wing morphometry
• cubital index
• Dawino