Heritabilities and correlations for several characters in the honey bee

Abstract

An array of inbred honey bee queens (Apis mellifera L.) were mated to single drones from either European (Baton Rouge, Louisiana) or Africanized (Maturin, Monagas, Venezuela) honey bee colonies. Worker bee offspring from these matings were evaluated for a variety of characteristics, and heritabilities (h²) and phenotypic and genetic correlations were estimated using the European data, the Africanized data, and the combined data. In four laboratory measures of honey production (hoarding day 2, 3, 4, and average hoarding), h² ranged from 0.20 to 0.92. In a laboratory test measuring responsiveness to an alarm pheromone, h² for initial activity of the bees was low (0.04 to 0.12) and h² for speed of the reaction was variable (0.31, 0.83, and 1.28). The h² values of nine colony defense measures made in the field also were variable (0.1 to 0.93). Comb cell size had h² estimates of 1.15 and 0.49. Phenotypic correlations were generally less than the corresponding genetic correlations. For some traits, the three estimates of the parameters were very different. Heritability estimates were sufficiently high to expect success in a selection program for gentler, more productive bees.