Assessment of Honey Production Efficiency of Races of Apis mellifera. AdansoniiL. in Nigeria

Abstract

Variations in the morphometric features of honeybees encountered in this study were within the range for A. mellifera adansonii (below 8mm), while the mean annual honey yield of the races ranged between 9kg in race 1 in the 2010 and 19kg of honey in race 4 in 2008 season. There were significant differences (P<0.05) in honey production among the respective races. Races 3 and 4 produced higher volumes of honey compared with the other races while the lowest volume of honey was recovered from colonies formed by race 1. In addition, positive correlation (P <0.01) was established between honey yield and antenna length (AL, 0.071) (P< 0.05), maximum width of abdomen (MWA, 0.084), proboscis length (PL, 0.078), length of pollen basket (LPB, 0.079), width of pollen basket (WPB, 0.186), length of hind wing (LHW, 0.167), length of Forewing (LFW, 0.164), length offemur (LF, 0.143), length of tarsi (M, 0.229) and length of radial cell of the forewing (LRC,0.109).