Assessment of genetic relatedness in the honeybee Apis mellifera L. (Hymenoptera: apidae) colonies by using microsatellite loci.

ABSTRACT

In this study the relatedness was estimated between mother queen's colony and her daughters' queens' colonies, by extracting DNA from their individual workers offspring (N= 20) and using five microsatellite loci. Locus As indicated more diversity in the length of alleles from 130 to 162 PB with frequency from 0.05 to 0.1, followed by locus A76 that showed alleles lengths 210 to 340 PB with frequency 0.05 to 0.2 that means big diversity in the colonies individuals due to the numbers of drones mated with mother queen. On the other hand, A107 illustrated the weight of alleles from 179 to 205 PB with frequency 0.05 to 0.25. Loci B124 and ACOO6 also showed high frequency of 0.25 and indicated more relatedness. Through locus 8124 the Correlation coefficient was 1.00 between P.Q and F,.QO and 0.87 for P.Q and F1.Q1 and F,.Q3. A43 indicated relatedness through the correlation coefficient (0.968) between F.Q1.and F2.Q2. The microsatellites demonstrated that there was a genetic diversity within and between colonies.