Investigating Genetic and Phenotypic Variability of Queen Bees: Morphological and Reproductive Traits

Abstract

The quality of the honeybee queen has an important effect on a colony’s development, productivity, and survival. Queen failure or loss is considered a leading cause for colonies’ mortality worldwide. The queen’s quality, resulting from her genetic background, developmental conditions, mating success, and environment, can be assessed by some morphological measures. The study aims to investigate variability for traits that could assess the quality of the queen. Related animals were enrolled in this study. Variance components were estimated fitting a mixed animal model to collected data. Heritabilities of body and tagmata weights ranged from 0.46 to 0.54, whereas lower estimates were found for the tagmata width and wing length. Heritabilities estimated for the spermatheca diameter and volume, number of ovarioles, and number of sperms were 0.17, 0.88, 0.70, and 0.57, respectively. Many phenotypic correlations related to size were high and positive, while weak correlations were found between morphology and reproductive traits. Introducing a queen’s traits in a selection program could improve colonies’ survivability. Further research should focus on better defining the correlations between the individual qualities of a queen and her colony’s performance.

Determination of the Effect of Live Weight on Various Quality Parameters of Commercially Reared Queens (Apis mellifera L.) in Turkey

“…However, the results of studies investigating the relationship between the queen bee's reproductive organs and external measurements such as the queen bee's thorax width, head width, and wing lengths are not compatible with each other. For example, while the number of stored sperm and mating frequency had a positive effect on thorax width [35], no effect was found on the number of ovaries, ovarian weight, or the number of matings [23,34]. between queens in the light (0.982±0.006 mm), moderate (1.053±0.002 mm), and heavy (1.215±0.008 mm) groups was very significant (P<0.01).…”

“…The average queen weight in the examined enterprises was determined to be 203.01±1.29 mg, and it was seen that 60.55 % of the total (heavy group) were within quality standards in terms of live weight (Table 1). High live weight in queen bees is preferred and considered a quality factor [20, 33,34].…”

The relationship between the internal and external morphological parameters of honeybee queens (Hymenoptera: Apidae) and the determination of morphological variation

“…In a recent study, weak correlations were found between the morphological and reproductive traits of the queen, while high and positive phenotypic correlations with queen size were reported. Morphological and reproductive characteristics were not found to be related (Facchini et al, 2021). Since the determination of most morphological and reproductive organ characteristics of queens is time-consuming, expensive, and impractical, it is recommended that non-destructive features be included in commercial queen rearing programs (Frost et al, 2021).…”

Long-Term Artificial Selection for Increased Larval Body Weight of Hermetia illucens in Industrial Settings

“…In mealworms, pupal body weight of Tenebrio molitor increased 66% after 8 years of artificial selection ( Morales-Ramos et al, 2019 ). In addition, various studies reported body mass to be a medium to highly heritable trait in different insects’ orders, with heritability estimates ranging from 0.2 to 0.6 ( Dingle et al, 1980 ; Iyengar and Eisner, 1999 ; Saastamoinen, 2008 ; Jumbo-Lucioni et al, 2010 ; Ellen et al, 2016 ; Facchini et al, 2021 ). These heritability estimates indicate that the population mean for body mass can be increased through artificial selection.…”