First Record and Morphology Study of Red Dwarf Honey Bees Apis Florea Fabricius (1787) in Basra Province

Abstract

In this study, 25 Morphometric characters of dwarf honey bees Apis florea: 15 were for the body characters and 10 for wing venation, in four geographical areas in the province of Basra. a total Samples of 360 workers, Computer program ImageJ was used to measure Morphometric characters. The results of the statistical analysis of the averages showed a clear difference in the Basra area, as the least of them were in the characters of the Head length and width, femur length, width of the end of tibia, and 1st Wax mirror Length, followed by the Al-Siba area in the characters, tibia length, 3rd tergite length, and 3rd sternite length. As for the wing venation, which are forewing width, No. hamuli, A4 angle, B4 angle, G18 angle, and K19 angle. While the cluster analysis showed the hierarchical grouping method of Basra bees with some regional countries, the Basra bees group aligned with the Iranian bee group with a degree of lineage and genetic distance more than the rest of the groups, this study is considered a preliminary registration and diagnosis of Apes florea in Basra province.

Keywords

• apis florea
• first record
• morphometric
• characters
• forewing
• dwarf honey bees
• basrah