INFLUENCE OF NUTRITIONAL STRESS AND THE AGE OF ADULTS ON THE MORPHOMETRICS OF HONEY BEES (APIS MELLIFERA L.)

Abstract

The effect of nutritional stress, and the post-emergence age of adult worker honey bees, on the morphometric determinations used to distinguish between Africanized and European honey bees were studied. Small nucleus colonies of bees in cages were fed either pollen, a defined synthetic diet, or a pollen substitute. Four free-flying colonies of bees were used as controls. Bees fed the various diets were all identified as European when samples of 10 bees were analyzed. However, there were individual bees in some treatments which were identified as Africanized with a probability of 0.50 or greater. Age was shown to influence results of morphometric analysis : samples of very young bees (less than 1 min post emergence) were more variable in their measurements than older bees (1, 6, 12, 24 or 48 h post emergence).