Diallel crosses of honeybees. II A note presenting an estimate of the heritability of honey production under Australian conditions

Abstract

A partial diallel cross of honeybees (Apis mellifera L.) was formed. Combining ability analysis of variance was used to estimate additive and non-additive genetic variance in seasonal colony weight gain for the artificial 'population' studied. The values determined were: general combining ability variance, 12.14 kg2 (s.e., 11.42); specific combining ability variance, 11 -96 kg2 (s.e., 13.71); environmental variance, 21.65 kg2 (s.e., 8.84); heritability of honey production, 0.42 (s.e., 0.24). The phenotypic standard deviation was 7.6 kg.The results suggest that selection for colony weight gain would be successful.