Identification of Africanized honey bees through wing morphometrics: two fast and efficient procedures

Currently available morphometric and genetic techniques that can accurately identify Africanized honey bees are both costly and time consuming. We tested two new morphometric techniques (ABIS - Automatic Bee Identification System and geometric morphometrics analysis) on samples consisting of digital images of five worker forewings per colony. These were collected from 394 colonies of Africanized bees from all over Brazil and from colonies of African bees, Apis mellifera scutellata (n = 14), and European bees, A. m. ligustica (n = 10), A. m. mellifera (n = 15), and A. m. carnica (n = 15) from the Ruttner collection in Oberursel, Germany (preserved specimens). Both methods required less than five minutes per sample, giving more than 99% correct identifications. There was just one misidentification (based on geometric morphometrics analysis) of Africanized bees compared with European subspecies, which would be the principal concern in newly-colonized areas, such as the southern USA. These new techniques are inexpensive, fast and precise.