The production of honey in the 30 initial colonies is *not correlated with any other measured productive or behavioral characteristic*, in disagreement with Manrique and Soares (2002b), who demonstrate a positive correlation between propolis and honey production (r = 0.42), suggesting that the bees producing more propolis also produce more honey.
For honey production, there were no differences (p > 0.05) between apiaries, with a variation of 8.7 to 10.8 kg (Table 1), presumably because they were in the same locality, in a similar landscape, with similar areas of forest and agricultural surroundings, and because the honeybees were not selected. The values were close to the mean productivity of the state of ParanĂ¡, at around 10 kg colony-1 year-1 (Silva, 2003) and below the national mean, most recently estimated by SEBRAE (2006), a maximum of 15 kg colony-1 year-1. [note: 10 kg=22 lbs]
There was a reduction in honey production from the parental to F1 generation, in the colonies selected both for honey and propolis production ... Honey production heritability is generally considered as low-moderate (Rinderer, 1986; Bienefeld et al., 2007; Costa-Maia et al., 2011).
Garcia, R. C., Oliveira, N. T. E. D., Camargo, S. C., Pires, B. G., Oliveira, C. A. L. D., Teixeira, R. D. A., & Pickler, M. A. (2013). Honey and propolis production, hygiene and defense behaviors of two generations of Africanized honey bees. Scientia Agricola, 70(2), 74-81.
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