UDC 638.15-02
DOI 10.36461/NP.2023.68.4.015

MORPHOMETRIC INDICATORS OF HONEY BEES DIED IN WINTER
M.N. Nevitov¹, Candidate of Biological Sciences, Associate Professor; K.S. Barannik², 11th grade student,
¹Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education "Penza State Agrarian University", Penza, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;
²Municipal budgetary educational institution "Gymnasium № 53", Penza, Russia

The decrease in the number of bee colonies is currently a worldwide problem. Most researchers believe that the main cause of bees’ death is the defeat of colonies by the Varroa mite. However, an equally significant factor is the unsystematic crossbreeding of bees, which leads to the emergence of populations that are unable to adapt to local climatic conditions. The results of the current research in the area of the morphometric indicators of honey bees died in winter despite of their apparent well-being showed that the predominant breed was Apis mellifera carnica (from 35.8 to 68.7%), a significant proportion of Apis mellifera ligustica was noted (from 18.1 to 68.7%). 47.3%). The least represented was Apis mellifera caucasica (from 5.1 to 21.2%)? but the honey bees of Apis mellifera mellifera were practically absent (from 0.0 to 1.4%). The research was carried out with the “Breed by Wings” (“Poroda po krilyam”) program. The queen bees were ordered in the summer of 2022 from the queen bees breeder in the city of Kislovodsk and were seen as daughters of the Carpathian breed queen bees. Probably, the Carpathian breed queen bees were indeed used as mothers for breeding queens, but free mating in conditions of an uncontrolled drone impact had negative consequences. The uncontrolled import of bees from the Central Asian republics could contribute to the increase of an unfavorable drone impact.
Keywords: morphometry, cubital index, discoidal displacement, bee mortality, cross-breeding.

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