Diversification of Morphological Features of the Dark European Honey Bee of the ‘Augustow M’ Line

SIMPLE SUMMARY: The necessity of protecting the Dark European honey bee (Apis m. mellifera) in Poland was realized in the 1970s. This was a consequence of the displacement of native bees caused mainly by the mass importation of queen bees of foreign species. Today, we have four programs for the conservation of the following lines of our Dark European honey bee: Augustow M, Kampinos M, Asta M and Northern M. These programs aim to keep the bee gene pool as rich as possible and to preserve the phenotypic and behavioral features characteristic of the Apis m. mellifera species. The aim of this study was to investigate the diversification of morphological features of the Dark European honey bee of the Augustow M line. The authors have demonstrated that the morphological features of the Augustow M line—crucial for identifying the species affiliation, determined as part of the authors’ research—are consistent with the corresponding features described by relevant Polish references used for the conservation of native bee lines. ABSTRACT: The aim of this study was to investigate the diversification of morphological features of the Dark European honey bee of the Augustow M line. The authors studied the proboscis length and cubital index, as features determining the affiliation to the species; the width of tergite 4 and the sum of widths of tergites 3 + 4, as indicators of the bee body size; and the length and width of the right forewing. They compared bees sampled from (1) the “lead apiary”, (2) “associate apiaries” and (3) “conservation area apiaries”—apiaries situated in the conservation area established by the national program for the conservation of genetic resources of this bee line. The conclusion was that it is possible to protect bees of the Augustow M line under the existing program, based on resources available to the lead, associate and conservation area apiaries. The bees studied have the essential features of the Dark European honey bee and the values of parameters tested are consistent with the morphological feature references valid for Apis m. mellifera. On the other hand, based on the authors’ research and on other studies described in literature of 1960s, there is a dwarfing trend in the Dark European honey bee of the Augustow M line.