gholamhosein tahmasbi; mohammad babaei; naser tajabadi; einollah seyfi; nader mashayekhi; hosein rezazadeh
Volume 19, Issue 4 , March 2018, , Pages 739-750
Abstract
The current study was aimed to evaluate the performance of the 13th generation of breeding improved queens in Iran Honey Bee Breeding Program, and to compare them with control queens kept in private apiaries. The mother queens were reproduced by beekeepers in south of Iran to evaluate and compare these ...
Read More
The current study was aimed to evaluate the performance of the 13th generation of breeding improved queens in Iran Honey Bee Breeding Program, and to compare them with control queens kept in private apiaries. The mother queens were reproduced by beekeepers in south of Iran to evaluate and compare these queens with queens reproduced in private apiaries across the country. To evaluate the queens, specific questionnaires were designed based on Likert scale and completed by beekeepers. The results showed that the improved queens had better performance than control queens in terms of swarming, defensive behavior and overwintering in comparison of queens kept in private apiaries. In other words, the genetically imprived colonies significantly are different from control colonies (P<0.05). Furthermore, swarming evaluation revealed that the superiority of bred colonies (P<0.05). For example, despite of limited space and compacted frames the colonies did not start to make queen cells. The results demonstrated that Iranian honey bee breeding is effective in improving of target traits and the use of these queens is essential for increasing beekeeping performance in Iran. According to the results, in spite of comparative advantage, there was no significant difference between the bred queens and control queens in terms of honey production and population. From the results, although all the efforts in desirable honey production were paid off, more time and novel methods are required to improve above mentioned traits. From the other side, resistant races against biotic and abiotic stresses should be conserved to produce high quality honey in serious time and conditions.