Some Morphological Variation of Dwarf Honeybee, Apis florea Fab. in Northern and Southern Iraq

Abstract

Alebty, M.A., I.M. Farag and K.O. Ali. 2023. Some Morphological Variation of Dwarf Honeybee, Apis florea Fab. in Northern and Southern Iraq. Arab Journal of Plant Protection, 41(3): 332-338. https://doi.org/10.22268/AJPP-41.3.332338 The dwarf honeybee, Apis florea Fab. is a successful ecologically adaptive and important factor in pollinating crops. It has recently spread widely in Iraq. To investigate the variability of this bee species, samples of worker bees from different regions of Iraq (North, Kurdistan Region and Southern, Basra province) were collected during the period from March to December 2021. Ten body morphological traits of worker bees and nine wing traits were selected for this study. The statistical analysis of the results obtained showed a clear discrepancy in the measurement of the studied characters, as sizes were less in the southern bees compared to northern bees for head length, antenna length, femur length, tibia length, 3 rd sternite length, 4 th tergite length, front wing width and length, angle A4, angle B4, angle D7, angle G18 and angle K19. This is the first record of dwarf honeybee in Kurdistan province in Iraq. Keywords: Apis florea, honeybees, morphological characters, adaptation, hot areas, cold areas, Iraq