Morphometric differences between honeybees (Apis mellifera l.)‎ in some areas of al-Batnan, eastern Libya

Abstract EN

The study carried out to measure some morphological characteristics of honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) collected from four / locations in Al-Batnan region, Eastern Libya which are: Tobruk, Akrama, Al-Tamimi and Umm Al-Razam.

Also the study aimed to determine the effect of location on the studied morphological characteristics.

Forty specimens (ten/location) were collected from the hives during spring and summer season, 2021.

Honeybees were killed by Ether 70% then the morphometric measurements were estimated.

The measured data were subjected to analysis of variance and means separation using SPSS.

The result showed that the location of collection significantly affected all studied measurements except of tergite width.

The bees of Tobruk recorded significantly greatest of head width (4.90 mm), tergite width (5.63 mm), mouthpart length (8.22 mm), hind wing length (6.51 mm) and fore wing length (9.23 mm).

The bees of Al-Tamimi area had greatest values of antennae length (5.09 mm), basitarsus length (3.10 mm), tibia length (3.94 mm) hind wing width (6.84 mm) and fore wing width (9.37 mm).

According to previous results, the study concluded that the bees of Al-Tamimi were characterized by large body size while the bees of Tobruk were characterized by longest of mouthpart.

The study recommend that more studies are needed with large number of bees to select and use bees of a certain location.