The post-capping period of the tropical honey bee subspecies Apis mellifera unicolor in La Réuion

Abstract

The honey bee Apis mellifera has shown a great intraspecific diversity, together with a variability of its life history traits. The development of the brood has been well documented in temperate but much less in tropical subspecies, but a limited number of studies focused on tropical subspecies. This study measures the post-capping period of A. mellifera unicolor, an African lineage subspecies living in a tropical and insular environment. The post-capping period was measured on 15 colonies distributed on two apiaries located at different altitudes (150 m and 900 m) in La Réunion. The mean post-capping period of A. mellifera unicolor was 280.1 ± 0.12 h and was significantly shorter in colonies at low altitude. A comparative analysis of the literature on the post-capping period for different subspecies showed that the post-capping period of the African lineage was significatively shorter than that of European lineage. A. mellifera unicolor post-capping period belonged to the hybrid cluster between them. Knowledge of such life history traits of A. mellifera unicolor may have implications for beekeeping practices and should be considered as one of the potential resistance traits to be evaluated in Varroa destructor breeding programmes.