HONEY POLLEN ANALYSIS AND POPULATION CHARACTERISTICS OF HONEY BEES LIVING IN THE TOWN OF NAUCHNIY GORODOK OF THE ALTAI REGION

Honeybeepopulations were formed under certain phy-toclimatic conditions and, in the process of natural selec-tion, acquired useful characters that ensured the survival and successful reproduction of the species. Throughout the evolutionary process, insects and plants have developed certain relationships, and therefore bees developed priori-ties and tools in collecting nectar and pollen from certain plant species. On the territory of Russia, several popula-tions of Apis melliferaL. are zoned; they differ in flora spe-cialization, color and body size, behavior, productivity, win-ter hardiness and disease resistance. The main morpho-metric indices of insects that confirm the purity of the breed are the proboscis length and cubital index. To determine the species compositionof bees, insect samples were tak-en from 3 bee colonies inhabiting the town of Nauchniy Gorodok of the Altai Region, and 4 honey varieties were taken for pollen analysis. It was found that all samples of centrifuged honey belonged to polyfloral varieties and con-sisted of pollen of plants of the Cruciferous family (6.0-23.5%), Polygonaceae(1.4-33.0%), Fabaceae (2.5-28.1%), and Compositae (0.5-23.5%). The range of the indices of proboscis length (6.46 ± 0.033; 6.57 ± 0.021; 6.53 ± 0.021 mm) and cubital index(42.58 ± 1.514; 50.31 ± 1.78; 45.36 ± 1.134%) of the studied bees was quite high. The coefficients of variation were as following: re-garding proboscis length -1.38-2.25%, and cubital index -10.9-15.49%. Thus, in the 3 studied bee colonies, there were individuals with exterior features (proboscis length and cubital index) belonging to the European dark, Carpa-thian, Carniolan,Italian, Yellow and Mountain Grey Cauca-sian honeybee breeds.