Study on some morphological characteristics of the Iranian race honey bee Apis mellifera meda (Hymenoptera, Apidae) in north of Iran

Apis mellifera L. is the only species of bees found and seen every where in the world except poles. Fortunately, Iran has got an independent race Apis mellifera meda Skorikov, 1927 because of ecological situations, topographic, long history of beekeeping, having four seasons and its vastness. This research project was executed by collecting 900 young worker bees out of 30 colonies from the provinces comprises of North Khorasan, Golestan, Tehran, Zanjan and West Azarbayjan. Then, 16 morphological characteristics of each bee were measured up to 14400 data obtained. In ANOVA statistical surveys Duncan test was applied in which, each characteristics was evaluated and analyzed independently. However, length of hind leg and tongue had the highest diversity as the most distinctive morphological characteristics throughout the Iranian honey bee. Discriminant analysis showed that the five groups of project classified into two independent groups: The first group included the North west Azarbayjan , Zanjan and Tehran 2. North Khorasan and Golestan. The analysis demonstrated the highest uniformity of individual bees was found in North Khorasan bees (64%) and lowest uniformity in West Azarbayjan bees (%36). There was significant negative correlation between third and fourth dorsal abdominal segments, right and left hamuli number.