Homozygosity of Sex Determination Locus and It’s Correlation with Population and Honey Production of Honeybee (Apis Mellifera Meda) Populations in West-Azerbaijan and Kurdistan Provinces

Sex allele homozygosity as an indicator of inbreeding could effects on the performance of honey bee colonies. Then sex allele homozygosity is essential to evaluate apiaries situation in the country, as well as designing breeding strategies. In order to investigation of sex alleles homozygosity percentage and number of allele in honey bee populations of West-Azerbaijan and Kurdistan provinces and its correlations with honey production and adult population, 320 honeybee colonies were used. Data analysis was performed using SAS software (Version 9.4). The results showed that sex alleles homozygosity and number were 12.7 % and 9.02 for West Azerbaijan province for apiaries of Kurdistan province were 13.82% and 8.15, respectively. The results of variance analysis showed that the province had significant (p<0.05) effect on all studied traits. The county in provinces had significant (p<0.01) effect just only honey production. The sex alleles number effects on colony population and honey production, and also effect of colony population on honey production were significant (p<0.01). The results of correlation analysis showed negative and significant (p<0.001) between sex alleles homozygosity percentage with sex alleles number (-0.92), honey production (-0.79) and colony adult population (-0.86). Also, regression analysis results showed that sex alleles homozygosity percentage had negative and significant (P<0.001) effect on colony adult population (-0.17) and honey production (-0.44). Thus, with an increase of one percent homozygosity, the colony adult population decreases about 0.17 frame (units), and honey production decreases about 0.44 units, or in other words, 440 grams. Therefore, only with attention of beekeepers on the homozygosity and number of sex alleles, it is possible to prevent a decrease in honeybee population and consequently a decrease in honey production in the countrychr('39')s apiaries.