Surveillance of European honeybee subspecies distribution in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Abstract

Nowadays the most common subspecies of western honeybee or European honey bee (Apis mellifera) have 28 subspecies around the world. The subspecies are divided into four major branches were confirmed by mitochondrial DNA analysis. African subspecies belong to branch A, north western European subspecies branch M, south western European subspecies branch C and Middle Eastern subspecies branch O. The different sub species of European honeybees have different characterization factors such as tolerances of environmental temperature changes, specific diseases resistant, defence behaviour and other economically important Traits. In this studied we collected the samples from 50 colonies of Apis mellifera from January to March 2017 at Chiang Mai, Thailand and used PCR-RFLP to identify mitochondrial lineages and subspecies of European Honeybees. There have three different subspecies of Apis mellifera such as Thai A1 Thai A2 and Thai B in Chiang Mai. Province, Thailand. Thai A group are similar match to C or east European lineage A.m. ligustica and A.m. carnica and Thai B group are similar to the match of O or Middle Eastern lineage, A.m. syriaca and A.m. lamarckii. The Haplotype group of ThaiA1 (38% of colonies) and group ThaiA2 (52%) Haplotype group ThaiB (10%).