Comparison of Improved honeybee queens of Iranian central region and control queens in different apiaries of Tehran, Isfahan, Markazi and Qazvin provinces

Iranian honeybee (Apis mellifera meda) in comparison of other honeybee races in the world has some advantages and also some disadvantages. During the "honeybee breeding project of Iran" in the central region of Iran was tried to improve the honey production, swarming and defense behavior to remove th e Iranian honeybee weak pointes. In this research after evaluation and selecting the best colonies during the 1999-2005 bred queens of sixth and seventh generation were compared, with control queens in different apiaries of Tehran, Isfahan, Markazi and Qazvin provinces. Comparison of 6th and 7th generation, of Iranian honeybee bred queens with control queens in Tehran, Qazvin, Markazi and Isfahan provinces were showed desire improvement in swarming calmness and defense behavior of bred queens. Swarming behavior evaluation of two groups in 2005 and 2006 were showed superiority of bred queens significantly (P0.01). Calmness and defense behavior comparison of two groups were showed the bred queens were better than control queens in 2005 and 2006 (P0.01). High heritability caused desire improvement of these traits in honeybee breeding plans and also in the present research in fifth and sixth generation of bred queens. Honey production comparison of two groups were showed the preference of bred queens in 2005 (P0.05) but no significant differences in 2006 and total of years (P0.05). Lower heritability of honey production and it's dependence on environmental and climatic factors caused undesirable improvement of honey production in the breeding plans and the results of present plan to confirm the last results and needs to long time for desire progress. For sustainable and health production should try to improve the honey production and also other traits such as important pest and diseases resistance in honeybee breeding project continuing.