The question of identification of subspecies has come up. These subspecies are ancient and worth preserving for their own sake. Whether they have particular regional or economic merits is, in my opinion, a completely separate issue. As has been stated repeatedly, the difference between strains is often far more significant than the difference between subspecies. And some hybrids have been shown to vastly outperform purebred strains. Anyway, here is some significant information on this thorny subject. By the way, nowhere in the entire paper is the outmoded term "race" used; I suggest we assign it to the dustheap of history.
Quoted material for review purposes only:
The western honey bee (Apis mellifera) is a
highly variable species, with approximately 30
recognized subspecies (Ruttner 1988). Within
subspecies, there are also ecotypes and breeding
lines, which are important for practitioners who
use and preserve genetic resources of bees.
Identification of honey bee subspecies is not a
trivial task because the differences between
them are small and hybrids are possible. The
first descriptions of the subspecies were based
on morphology. Many different morphological
traits were used, including size of various body
parts, wing venation and pigmentation (Ruttner
et al. 1978; Ruttner 1988). However, the
forewing venation alone (Francoy et al. 2008;
Tofilski 2008) or even shape of single wing cell
(Francoy et al. 2006) can provide enough
information for the identification.
There are no objective criteria for distinguishing
between pure subspecies and hybrids. The identification
requires the use of threshold values which are to some
degree arbitrary.
Particularly strong agreement occurred between
methods based on morphometrics and
microsatellites. There is no clear answer
which of the two methods is more accurate
because the true assignment of workers to
subspecies remains unknown.
In this study, we examined the concordance
between assignment of bees based on genetic
and morphometric markers, in an area originally
occupied by A. m. mellifera. Our results indicate
that the native subspecies still predominates in
the studied area and pure A. m. carnica are
relatively uncommon despite recent queen importation.
Oleksa, A., & Tofilski, A. (2015). Wing geometric morphometrics and microsatellite analysis provide similar discrimination of honey bee subspecies. Apidologie, 46(1), 49-60.
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