<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>The three honey bee phenotypes - queens, workers, and drones differ in the size and shape of body parts. We used a large dataset to describe how the three phenotypes differed with regard to fore wings and applied the methodology of geometric morphometrics to measure the wings using the coordinates of nineteen landmarks. On average, queens had wings larger than workers, but the two castes had a broad overlap. Drones, on the other hand, had distinctly larger wings. Wing shape differed markedly among queens, workers and drones and can be used to reliably differentiate them from one other. Surprisingly, the fore wing shape of workers was more similar to that of drones than to that of queens. Small queens were not more similar to workers than large queens, and large workers were not more similar to queens than small workers. Because wing size, unlike body mass, does not change over the life of the queen, it can be used to evaluate the quality of a queen throughout its life and not only during a short period after emergence. We provide a large number of wing images of queens and drones, which can be used as a reference in future studies.</p>
</abstract>

The three honey bee phenotypes - queens, workers, and drones differ in the size and shape of body parts. We used a large dataset to describe how the three phenotypes differed with regard to fore wings and applied the methodology of geometric morphometrics to measure the wings using the coordinates of nineteen landmarks. On average, queens had wings larger than workers, but the two castes had a broad overlap. Drones, on the other hand, had distinctly larger wings. Wing shape differed markedly among queens, workers and drones and can be used to reliably differentiate them from one other. Surprisingly, the fore wing shape of workers was more similar to that of drones than to that of queens. Small queens were not more similar to workers than large queens, and large workers were not more similar to queens than small workers. Because wing size, unlike body mass, does not change over the life of the queen, it can be used to evaluate the quality of a queen throughout its life and not only during a short period after emergence. We provide a large number of wing images of queens and drones, which can be used as a reference in future studies.

Size and Shape Differences in Fore Wings of Honey Bee (Apis Mellifera) Queens, Workers and Drones

Journal of Apicultural Science

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The three honey bee phenotypes - queens, workers, and drones differ in the size and shape of body parts. We used a large dataset to describe how the three...

Size and Shape Differences in Fore Wings of Honey Bee (Apis Mellifera) Queens, Workers and Drones

Published Online: Jun 27, 2024

Page range: 5 - 17

Received: Oct 31, 2023

Accepted: Dec 11, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jas-2023-0013

Keywords
drone, honey bee, queen, shape, size, wing, worker

© 2024 Adam Tofilski et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Size and Shape Differences in Fore Wings of Honey Bee (Apis Mellifera) Queens, Workers and Drones

Published Online: Jun 27, 2024

Page range: 5 - 17

Received: Oct 31, 2023

Accepted: Dec 11, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jas-2023-0013

Keywordsdrone, honey bee, queen, shape, size, wing, worker

© 2024 Adam Tofilski et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Keywords
drone, honey bee, queen, shape, size, wing, worker