Genetic Characters in Immature Stages of Wild and Mutant Honeybees

Abstract

Wild eye colour can be distinguished from brick, chartreuse and buff mutants: from 4 days before pupation by the presence of a pink rim to the compound eyes, and on the first day after pupation by the presence of pink dots in the compound eyes and by the colour of the ocelli. Brick mutants of both sexes are distinguishable on the third day after pupation, chartreuse on the fourth day in workers and the fifth day in drones: buff mutants start to colour on the sixth day in both sexes. The ocelli of wild bees are almost the same colour as the compound eyes, whereas in the mutant phenotypes they are colourless or white-grey. Eye colour is thus a good genetic marker in early development stages. On the other hand cordovan body colour can be distinguished from the wild type only one day before emergence from the cell, and is thus not useful.