Morphometric diversity of indigenous Honeybees, Apis mellifera (Linnaeus, 1758), in Saudi Arabia

Journal Article

2012

Ghamdi, Ahmad Al Khazim Al . 2012

The Honeybee Apis mellifera (Linnaeus, 1761) is naturally spread in Europe, Africa and
Western Asia (MIGUEL et al. 2011). Based on morphometry, 26 subspecies have been identified
and clustered into four evolutionary lineages (RUTTNER 1988, SHEPPARD et al. 1997,
ENGEL 1999, SHEPPARD & MEIXNER 2003, MIGUEL et al. 2011). In Saudi Arabia, Apis mellifera
exists throughout the country, especially in the southern and western regions next to the
Red Sea coast, from Tabouk (29°00’N, 37°20’E) in the north near the Jordan border to Jazan
(16°54’N, 42°35’E) in the south-west near the Yemen border. Within this large area, most of
the Honeybee colonies (approximately 80%) are still kept in traditional wooden-log hives
and occupy varied ecological niches, from deserts to arid subtropical areas including mountainous
regions in the south (ALQARNI et al. 2011). Towards the far south of Yemen, Apis
mellifera jemenitica (Ruttner, 1975) has been reported, and apparently shares similar characteristics
with the native bees of Saudi Arabia. Towards the far north, a closer connection
with Apis mellifera syriaca (Skorikov, 1929) may exist. Previous work by RUTTNER (1976)
has described Apis mellifera jemenitica as an indigenous bee race of Saudi Arabia, Yemen
and Oman, in zones with very high temperature and low precipitation. In that work,
RUTTNER included only a few bee samples from three locations within Saudi Arabia: Sabya
(17°15’N, 42°62’E), Riyadh (24°64’N, 46°77’E) and AIhasa (25°33’N, 49°63’E). He
described the smallest A. m. jemenitica from these locations according to the most popular
taxonomic traits used in the analysis of bee races. However, reference data are available only
for the two samples from Sabya (RUTTNER et al. 1978, GROMISZ 1981).

• Volume Number: 57
• Issue Number: 2012
• Magazine \ Newspaper: Zoology in the Middle East
• Pages: 97-103