摘要
Anatolia, also named as Asia Minor, is known as one of the gene centers for a number of the life forms in the world. Caucasian honeybee is one of the important gene resources in Anatolia and mountain type is the most significant variant. This honeybee race is black colored and similar to the Carniola bees regarding shape, size and hair cover. Body is moderate structured, slim and long as abdomen is thin. Chitin is dark. Hair cover is black and short （0.335 ± 0.031 ram）. Hair color of worker bees is livid grey as chest hair color of drones is black. All abdominal rings are black colored. It has the longest tongue （7.046 ±0.189 mm） among the all honeybee races. Caucasian bees form strong colonies but their colonial development is slow. They swarm only very little and are good tempered. They are good pollinators for alfalfa, clover and similar plants with deep tube flowers and can work under unfavourable conditions. It is known that homeland of Caucasian bee （A. mellifera caucasica） is upper valleys of mid-Caueasia （Georgia, Azerbaijan and Northern Caucasus）. Its distribution area is extended to Kars, Ardahan and Artvin provinces in North-Eastern Anatolia of Turkey. The area including Posof district of Ardahan province and its all villages and 6 villages of Camili basin in Borka district of Artvin province is housing different eeotypes of this race. So, this area was isolated for gene conservation of Caucasian bee by Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs in 2008. In-situ conservation studies for Caucasian bee （A. mellifera caucasica Gorbachev） have been continuing under the Indigenous Gene Resources Conservation Scheme with a total of 6,960 colonies under on-farm conditions.
