Summary — The stages of preimaginal development of the Africanized worker honey bee (Apis mellifera L) were characterized. Body weight and head diameter were used as characters with which to differentiate among the first 4 instars, and additional traits such as apolysis, defecation and tibiotarsal length of the hind legs were used to characterize the subdivision of the 5th and last instar. Pupal stages were determined on the basis of eye and thorax pigmentation. The duration of each stage was also determined from these characteristics. The post-embryonic development period of Africanized bees is ≈ 24 h shorter than that in Apis mellifera carnica, and 18 and 24 h longer than in African bees.Africanized honeybee / preimaginal development / duration of development / larval instar
Mitochondrial genotypes of Africanized honeybees fromBrazil and Uruguay were surveyed by DraI restriction of the COI-COII region. Eleven mitotypes were found, three of which had not previously been described (A28-A30). Out of 775 samples (725 from Brazil, 50 from Uruguay), 197 were A1 and 520 were A4. A1 frequency increases toward the north of Brazil, whereas A4 frequency increases toward the south, a pattern echoing the African distribution. The origin of the A4 and most of the A1 African patterns can be attributed to the introduction of Apis mellifera scutellata into Brazil in 1956. The A29 and A30 patterns have the P1 sequence observed in many Iberian Peninsula samples, which represent the traces of the introductions into Brazil and Uruguay by settlers.
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