Mountain honeybees of Africa

The honeybees occurring along transects from low to high altitude were analysed for seven separate mountain systems in Africa using three suites of characters: morphometric characters, flight dimensional measurements and the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) restriction length fragments derived from the non-coding region of COI-COII by DraI restriction. Morphocluster definition was consistent with mtDNA cluster membership but not with flight dimensional data. When all three character suites are combined, six different kinds of unrelated mountain bees are obtained. The only commonality among the mountain bees is that they are larger than those of lower altitudes. Because of fundamental differences in the restriction length fragments and other clusters obtained, it is concluded that mountain bees should probably be regarded as ecotypically differentiated populations of the subspecies surrounding each particular mountain.