Morphometrical Studies of Honeybees in Dinder Biosphere Reserve, Sudan

Abstract

This study was conducted in Dinder Biosphere Reserve during the dry season of 2009 (February - May) and February 2010. The objective of this research is to conduct morphometrical study of honeybees in DBR in order to know if there are more than one species and their distribution in the reserve. Samples of honeybee workers were collected from wild honeybee colonies nesting in tree cavities and branches. They were selected randomly from 20 locations from the three ecosystems: Maya, Riverine and Dehra. Furthermore, 25 workerbees were selected randomly from each sample, dissected and were mounted on glass slides for the morphometric study. Fourteen traits were measured using a micrometer with the help of stereo-binocular microscope for each worker bee. The obtained data was subjected to one way ANOVA with the three ecosystems as main source of variation. In general, the results obtained showed that, all the samples are for bees belong to one species which is Apis mellifera. Moreover, the statistical analysis of the results indicated significant differences (P < 0.05) among the bees in the three ecosystems with respect to forewing length and width, percentage of yellow coloration, first wax mirror width and the distance between wax mirrors. However, the cubital index was highly significantly different (P < 0.01). It could be concluded that there in the Dinder Biosphere Reserve there is only one species with more than one subspecies and they are associate with Riverine, Maya and Dehra ecosystems.