Position of the Red Honey bee, Apis koschevnikovi (Buttel-Reepen 1906), within the Genus Apis F. Ruttner, D. Kauhausen, N. Koeniger To cite this version: F. Ruttner, D. Kauhausen, N. Koeniger. Position of the Red Honey bee, Apis koschevnikovi (Buttel- Reepen 1906), within the Genus Apis. Apidologie, Springer Verlag, 1989, 20 (5), pp.395-404. hal- 00890794 HAL Id: hal-00890794 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00890794 Submitted on 1 Jan 1989 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Original article Position of the Red Honey bee, Apis koschevnikovi (Buttel-Reepen 1906), within the Genus Apis F. Ruttner D.2 Kauhausen N. Koeniger 1 Universität Frankfurt, Institut für Bienenkunde (Polytechn. Gesellschaft), D-6370 Oberursel, FRG 2 Bayerische Landesanstalt für Bienenzucht, D-8520 Erlangen, FRG (received 19 December 1989, accepted 29 March 1989) Summary — The "Red Bee" of Borneo, described in 1988 by Koeniger et al. and Tingek et al. as a separate species, was first named by H. v. Buttel-Reepen in 1906. The correct name, therefore, is Apis koschevnikovi Buttel-Reepen 1906 and not Apis vechti Maa 1953. By multivariate analysis (PCA and DA) Apis koschevnikovi can clearly be separated from the 2 other cavity-nesting Apis spe- cies. Although A. koschevnikovi is very similar to A. cerana phenotypically, it is much larger than bees of this species from a similar geographic latitude, corresponding in size to equatorial popula- tions of A. mellifera from Africa. Apis— taxonomy — Apis koschevnikovi - morphometrics — Borneo THE CORRECT SCIENTIFIC NAME of his new form, but elsewhere in the same work he referred to it as koschevni- no koschev- In the spring of 1988, Koeniger et al. and kovi. There is doubt but that nikovi itself is the name for this Tingek et al. published data on the taxo- by bee]. To him, the at the Berlin Mu- nomic status of a special honey bee from specimens seum were evidence that A. cerana also S.E. Asia as a true species which they de- occurs on the African continent. termined as Apis vechti (Maa, 1953). But this was not the first description of this About 50 years later (1953) Maa de- honey bee, very conspicuous by its red- scribed a number of specimens of the dish legs and hair, and by its size. Buttel- "Red Bee", all collected in Borneo, in his Reepen (1906) found several specimens taxonomic revision of the genus Apis. of this kind in the Museum of Natural His- Maa considered the "Red Bee" to be a tory in Berlin which were labelled as separate species and gave it a new "Cameroon", and one as "N. Borneo". He name, Apis vechfi (after the entomologist dismissed the possibility as unlikely, and J. Van der Vecht then of the Bogor Mu- named this cerana-type honey bee "Apis seum, now Putten, The Netherlands). He mellifica indica-koschevnikovi " [in Buttel- even noticed a certain geographic vari- Reepen’s taxonomic system A. indica (= ability sufficient to establish 2 subspecies " A. cerana) was taken as a subspecies of ("vechti and "linda"). Maa did not re- A. mellifera. The prefix "indica" was used evaluate the specimens of the Berlin Mu- by Buttel-Reepen to show the relationship seum and proposed retaining the name &dquo;A. koschevnikovi &dquo; for the supposedly Af- formis, all clearly different from A. koschev- rican &dquo;Red Bee&dquo;. nikovi. These findings raise the question of the of this between the The present situation is as follows : position species other 4 known recent Apis species. 1) &dquo;Apis vechti &dquo; is a true species: it differs from A. cerana in the endophallus (Tingek et al., 1988) and time of drone flight (= re- productive isolation; Koeniger et aL, 1988). It is with A. cerana indica. sympatric MATERIAL AND METHODS 2) There is no evidence yet that a cerana- type honey bee exists on the African conti- For the of the &dquo;Red Bee&dquo;, nent. of the at the morphometric analysis Mislabelling specimens two sets of data were used. Berlin Museum is the most probable expla- nation for the present confusing situation. Consequently, 2 names are probably used for the same bee of the same area. After Phenetic analysis including fossil hon- consulting Dr Charles Michener in this eybees matter, we asked Dr Frank Koch, Museum fur Naturkunde Universität, Ber- (Humboldt Characters of 12 individuals of A. koschevnikovi to re-examine the de- lin) specimens and 12 of A. cerana indica, both from the region scribed in 1906 by Buttel-Reepen (which of Tenom, Sabah, N. Borneo, were analysed to- have miraculously survived the last 83 gether with data on individual honey bees as years) to confirm their cerana-type charac- used in an earlier analysis (Ruttner et al., 1986). ters. The following criteria were used The origin of these bees was the following : which discriminate best between A. cerana 1) A. armbrusteri— Schwabische Alb, Upper Mi- and A. mellifera : ocene, 10 specimens i) prolongation of radial vein of hind wing 2) A. dorsata - Pakistan, 10 specimens (&dquo;indica vein&dquo;) - present; 3) A. florea- Pakistan, 10 specimens ii) tomentum on last tergite-present; 4) A. cerana cerana - Afghanistan, 10 speci- mens iii) number of hamuli on hind wing - 17 to 19. 5) A. mellifera— Iran, 10 specimens. The characters used were 16 venation Thus there is no doubt that all of Buttel- wing angles; no characters of size were included. The are Reepen’s specimens cerana-type and multivariate statistical methods were factor and that they were not collected in Cameroon discriminant analyses (PCA, DA). Both methods but most likely in Borneo. According to the gave basically identical results. Finally, ellipses rules of priority, the name &dquo;A. vechti &dquo; is re- of confidence were calculated (Cornuet, 1982). dundant and the correct scientific name of the Red Honey bee has to be Apis ko- schevnikovi (Buttel-Reepen, 1906). Taxonomic-morphomefric analysis Here it should be noted that no type similar to the &dquo;Red Bee&dquo; is among the vari- In these all 34 characters were used ous honeybees collected by Wallace in analyses as in the standard method of bee mor- North Borneo and described Smith honey by phometry (Ruttner et al., 1978; Ruttner, 1988); he lists A. dorsata and a va- (1858; 1865); not individual bees but the means of samples of riety of this species, A. testacea, A. indica 15-20 bees were taken as units. Five samples with the variety perrottetii and A. andreni- of A. koschevnikovi from N. Borneo and 1 sam- ple from Sumatra were analysed together with cluster, with only slight differentiation of samples of A. cerana of various origins and of the 2 species (Figs. 1 and 2). A. koschev- tropical populations (Arabia, E. Africa) of A. mel- nikovi with the 2 other lifera. appears together cavity-nesting species as 3 separate clus- Voucher of A. koschevnikovi have specimens ters without A. cerana in the been for in the overlapping, placed permanent preservation centre and A. mellifera at the Honeybee Taxonomy Collection of the Institut periphery. fur Bienenkunde Oberursel, University of Frank- The cluster of A. koschevnikovi is found in furt. direct contact with that of A. cerana, but distant from the mellifera cluster. The cera- na samples from Borneo are at the centre of the general cerana cluster (Fig. 2B). In the graph showing the ellipses of confi- RESULTS dence (95%, Fig. 2), the K cluster heavily overlaps the C cluster but not the M clus- ter. Phenetic analysis As was to be the of the expected, positions Taxonomic analysis clusters are identical with those of an earli- er investigation of fossil and known recent species : the fossil A. armbrusteri and A. The samples of A. cerana are arranged in dorsata are represented as a common 2 separate groups (Fig. 3). While the popu- lations with small bees of the subspecies tween the centroids of A.c. cerana and A. A. cerana indica from S. India, Sri Lanka, c. indica. Thailand, Indonesia, etc. appear to the left, If the group A. koschevnikovi-A. cerana the of the A. cerana cerana samples large is itself, that is exclu- from Afghanistan, Pakistan, N. India, Chi- analysed by including sively samples of these 2 species, the ce- na, and those of A. cerana japonica are to rana in one the right. The clusters of the tropical melli- subspecies appear compact, only subdivided cluster, while the fera populations are at great distance in slightly koschevnikovi are found in a re- the far right corner. samples mote, compact aggregation (Fig. 5). The cluster of the 5 A. koschevnikovi One 20 from samples (15 bees each) from Borneo is sample (No. 991; bees) Sumatra, collected in 1978 by one of the found between these 2 groups (Fig. 3), authors (Koeniger) in Muaro near Solok, is close to that of A. cerana cerana, the clos- separated from the A, c. indica cluster by a est samples the populations from being great distance, but very close to the A. S.W. China (Yunnan, Fig. 3). When ellip- koschevnikovi samples (Fig. 3). These ses of confidence are calculated, A. kos- honey bees show the same typical rufous chevnikovi with A.