Apidologie 24 (1993) 569-585
DOI: 10.1051/apido:19930605

Morphometric identification of Africanized and European honey bees using large reference populations

T.E. Rinderer^a, S.M. Buco^b, W.L. Rubink^c, H.V. Daly^d, J.A. Stelzer^a, R.M. Riggio^e and F.C. Baptista<sup>f

a</sup>  USDA Agricultural Research Service, Honey Bee Breeding, Genetics and Physiology Research Laboratory, 1157 Ben Hur Rd, Baton Rouge, LA 70820, USA
^b  Statistical Resources, 7342 Highland Rd, Baton Rouge, LA 70808, USA
^c  USDA Agricultural Research Service, Honey Bee Research Laboratory, USDA, ARS, 2413 E Hwy 83, Bldg 205, Weslaco, TX 78596, USA
^d  Dept of Entomological Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
^e  Dept of Entomology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70893, USA
^f  Arizona Dept of Agriculture, 2422 W Holly St, Phoenix, AZ 85009, USA

Abstract - New discriminant analysis procedures have been presented to identify Africanized and European honey bees. These procedures are founded on data from 2 103 samples of honey bees collected from colonies at several locations in the western hemisphere and Kangaroo Island, Australia. Various univariate and multivariate analyses have been used to select the morphological characteristics and the groups of characteristics to be used in the analysis. The multivariate discriminant analysis correctly identified 565 (95.6%) of the 591 Africanized colonies and correctly identified all of the 1 512 European colonies.

Key words: Apis mellifera / Africanized honey bee / European honey bee / morphometric identification / multivariate discriminant analysis