Keywords:
Apis
, Honey bees, Image acquisition programme, Morphological characterization, Pollination
Honey bees assume a highly significant role in the sustainable agricultural productivity accomplished through effective pollination and successful plant reproduction. The investigations on the morphological traits of honey bees are highly important for their role in discrimination and conservation of different subspecies/races/ecotypes for accounting biodiversity. The studies on the bee diversity, pollination ecology and conservation of bee pollinators are hindered worldwide due to difficult taxonomy of bees, lack of bee taxonomists and the relevant literature. We employed morphological characterization on four honey bee species based on 39 characters using the image acquisition programmed zoom-stereo microscope. The results are useful to study the races/ ecotypes in different parts of country and for developing computer based automated system of their identification.
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The authors wish to acknowledge to the Head, Department of Entomology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana for providing necessary facilities to carry out the research.