MORPHOMETRIC CLASSIFICATION OF HONEYBEE POPULATIONS (APIS MELLIFERA L.) ALONG THE SOUTHEAST BORDER OF TURKEY

G. O. Ozbakir, C. Firatli

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to classify and compare the honeybee populations of Turkey, Syria and Iran based on their morphometric traits. Worker honey bees were sampled from populations of Van, Hakkari, Şırnak, Mardin, Şanlıurfa, Kilis and Hatay in Turkey; Lattakia, İdlib, Aleppo, Ar-Raqqah and Dayr az-Zawr in Syria and Urmia, Maku and Khoy in Iran, the settlements along the common border in the Southeast of Turkey. In the summer of 2008, 38 apiaries along the border in 3 countries were visited and 3340 worker honey bee specimen collected from 167 colonies. Univariate analysis showed that significant differences for all characters were found among honeybee samples from 15 localities (P<0.001). Discriminate analysis correctly classified 92.2% of the colonies and 56.3% of the individuals to their actual localities. According to colony averages; three overlapping clusters of Van-Hakkari-Şırnak-Iran, Şanlıurfa-Kilis and Hatay-Syria were formed separately. Mardin group showed a distinct cluster in the analyses. When Turkey-Syria-Iran groups were analyzed using the individual data, 71.4% of the 3340 worker honeybees were assigned to actual groups. Upon analysis of this percentage, it was found that 64.6%, 80.7% and 91.8% of individuals were assigned to their country groups of Turkey, Syria and Iran, respectively.

Keywords: Apis mellifera L.; discriminant analysis; honeybee; morphometry

Date published: 2019-01-17