Investigating Genetic and Phenotypic Variability of Queen Bees: Morphological and Reproductive Traits

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Honeybees have attracted considerable scientific and public interest in recent years. Besides pesticides and pathogens, failure or loss of the queen have been considered the most important factors leading to colony losses worldwide. The poor quality of the queen is a factor that ranks among the top reasons for bee colony failure. There are traits that can indicate the quality of a queen bee. This study aims to investigate the diversity in reproductive and morphological traits that can be useful in selective breeding programs for improving colony performance and survivability. The studied animals came from a population bred by a professional queen breeder in Northern Italy. Heritability and genetic correlations were estimated. According to our results, some of the traits showed good variability and they could be included as breeding goals in selection programs. Improving the quality of queens could directly impact honeybee colonies’ performance and survivability. Ultimately, it represents an added value to a queen bee-breeder company. ABSTRACT: The quality of the honeybee queen has an important effect on a colony’s development, productivity, and survival. Queen failure or loss is considered a leading cause for colonies’ mortality worldwide. The queen’s quality, resulting from her genetic background, developmental conditions, mating success, and environment, can be assessed by some morphological measures. The study aims to investigate variability for traits that could assess the quality of the queen. Related animals were enrolled in this study. Variance components were estimated fitting a mixed animal model to collected data. Heritabilities of body and tagmata weights ranged from 0.46 to 0.54, whereas lower estimates were found for the tagmata width and wing length. Heritabilities estimated for the spermatheca diameter and volume, number of ovarioles, and number of sperms were 0.17, 0.88, 0.70, and 0.57, respectively. Many phenotypic correlations related to size were high and positive, while weak correlations were found between morphology and reproductive traits. Introducing a queen’s traits in a selection program could improve colonies’ survivability. Further research should focus on better defining the correlations between the individual qualities of a queen and her colony’s performance.