Genetic characterization of honeybee populations in North Lebanon

Abstract

Honey Bees are amongst the most important pollinators; however, bee colonies are drastically declining worldwide. Fortunately, the native honeybee lineage in Lebanon, Apis mellifera syriaca, has held its place and continues to populate even though other lineages have declined. Honey production in Lebanon is regarded as a lucrative money and time investment, and its either taken as a full time job or as a side job. Lebanese bee keepers tend to import foreign honey bees such as the Carniolan (A. mellifera carnica), and the Italian (A. mellifera ligustica) strains because they are well known for their increased production of honey. However, what all beekeepers tend to oversee are the disadvantages that those foreign lineages hold that overweigh their increased honey production. The A. mellifera syriaca has better parasitic resistance and climate adaptation than the imported honey bee lineages. This raises the alert to maintain and preserve our local honey bee lineage to prevent their loss, since they play a very important agricultural and economical role due to their major contribution in pollination. To do so, our aim is to determine the lineages of honey bees across the Northern Governorate of Lebanon by amplifying their intergenic region between the COI and COII genes, which holds markers that help distinguish between different honey bee lineages, and then digest it using the DraI enzyme to create a restriction map. Then, by comparing the restriction maps of our samples to previously developed restriction maps, we therefore identify the distribution of our honey bee samples lineages. This helps us to pinpoint the locations holding pure A. mellifera syriaca in North Lebanon, and then try to work on setting reserves for the honey bee lineage there. Our results show the existence of both the C and the Z lineages. There were four restriction patterns (P, PoQ, PoQQ, & PoQQQ) identified amid the restriction maps of the honeybee samples. The Z lineage constituted around 78% of the studied samples. Samples belonging to the C imported lineage were detected only in "Kfr Kahl" 10%, while Tanourine and Anfeh showed 42% and 66% C lineage, respectively. Since the majority of the North Lebanon Governorate still holds a high percentage of the Z lineage, this area could be considered for the possible establishment of reserves for our local strain.