FOURTH GENERATION OF CLOSED POPULATION HONEYBEE BREEDING. 2. Relationship between morphological and colony traits

Abstract

SUMMARY A study of the factors affecting honey production was conducted using the 4th generation of 10 queen families kept in isolated groups of 97 colonies in northern and 90 colonies in southern Alberta. Yearly selection was based on a short term colony gain at the beginning of honey flow. Nineteen morphological and 18 colony characteristics were compared. The two strains i.e. northern and southern, were different in 8 morphological and 14 colony traits. Floney production was significantly positively correlated with fall colony weight, worker brood area in May, viability of eggs, disease resistence or hygienic behaviour of bees, spring Nosema counts (negative correlation), forewing area, hindwing area, femur, tibia and metatarsus length, third sternite length and wax mirror length x wax mirror width. The largest canonical correlation of these factors with honey production, 1st harvest and 2nd harvest was 0.645, which is significantly different from zero. These results suggest that morphological characters can be used to improve honeybee stock.