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Apis mellifera meda is one among those two dozen subspecies which
are the most widely distributed in the world. While in our first
description, its distribution is restricted to North Persia, Lencoron (on
the Caspian Sea coast), in later studies it extends westward, to the
north of Iraq and Syria, and to the southeastern parts of Turkey. To
investigate the geographic variation and population structure of the
honey bees of northern Iran that are among the least studied
populations of Apis mellifera, samples were collected in the Alburz
mountains, in the south of the Caspian Sea.
A total of 46 colonies were sampled from six different locations
(three in the highlands: Khanchay, Sefar, Zanjan; and three in the
lowlands, Gholikandy, Gultepe and Duzteran Fig.1). Out of six
enzymes assayed, four were found to be polymorphic (Pgm, Hk, Mdh,
and Est) and two (Pgi and Me) displayed invariant banding patterns.
Gene frequencies, enzyme heterozygosities and usefulness of gene
frequencies to Hardy-Weinberg expectations were analyzed with the
BIOSYS-1 package. The overall grand mean heterozygosity for all
populations was calculated as 0.052±0.036. A Distance Wagner
analysis based on the Prevosti distance divided the honey bee samples
into two groups according to their origin from lowlands and
highlands. Morphmetric variations of the colonies were assessed using
parameters measured from hind and fore-wing and from legs.
Different multivariate analyses were applied for the determination of
different honey bee populations in the Alburz Mountains in Iran