![Sample our Environment & Sustainability journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5935/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Environment-Sustainability.jpg"})
Abstract
By means of a morphometric study, worker bees coming from three localities (Ponte Nizza, Ruino and Voghera) in the Oltrepo pavese (Northern Italy) were compared with specimens of Apis mellifera ligustica Spinola, from the apiary of the ‘Istituto Nazionale di Apicoltura’ of Bologna, situated in Reggio Emilia. The specimens, taken from three colonies in each locality, were measured for five characteristics (length of lower labrum, cubital index of fore-wing, width of yellow strip on tergite 2, width of tomentum band on tergite 4 and length of hairs on tergite 5): the values obtained were submitted to discriminant multivariate analysis.
The three populations from each locality were statistically different from each other and from the reference specimens. The latter, however, were very similar, as expected due to the fact that they were obtained by means of artificial insemination. Among the apiaries studied, that of Ponte Nizza was the only one with colonies approaching the samples of A. m. ligustica from Reggio Emilia. All the characteristics examined carried the same weight in discriminating the differences between the populations.
KEY WORDS: