MORPHOMETRY OF BEES WINGS OF THE SOUTHEASTRN REGION OF POLISYA (ZHYTOMYR REGION)

Abstract

Introduction: Morphometry of bee wings, which is used to distinguish bees between species and subspecies, is an important component of bee selection using mass and individual selection, breeding by subspecies, lines, etc. Modern computer programs designed to discriminate bee wings are expensive and difficult in use for ordinary beekeepers. The goal of the work: to obtain morphometric data of the bee wings distributed in Polissya and to create a simple software product – «express method» to determine the breed of bees. Material and methods of research: 1423 photographs of the wings of 17 colonies were used. Calculation of features of 5 indices: Ci, Dbi, Рci, Disc.sh., Ri was carried out by own program. Statistical processing of index values using the method of discriminant analysis was performed with the use of StatSoft’s STATISTICA 8.0 software package. Results of research and discussion: In the STATISTICA package we built a classification model – classification functions were found, with which the wings of the studied colonies were distributed in 4 clusters. The reliability of the classification (Percent correct) was 95.9%. The average values of the indices Ci, Dbi, Рci, Disc.sh., Ri of the corresponding clusters and their errors were calculated. The obtained experimental data indicate that the wings of the studied colonies are clearly distributed mainly between the two clusters. For other colonies, the classifier did not found a significant difference between the wings and assigned most of the wings to one cluster. In general, the breed composition of worker bees of the studied colonies is heterogeneous. Most of them were classified as crossbreeds, the predominant components of which are Ukrainian steppe, A.m.mellifera (Polis`ka population), their crossbreeds, as well as Carpathian bees, which is considered a related population of A.m.carnica. Conclusions and prospects for further research: The resulting classification model, which was obtained, can be used by beekeepers as a «starting point» to establish the breed of bees and bee colonies presented in apiaries.