THE P-3 AND EST LOCI IN THE HONEYBEE APIS MELLIFERA

1 Department of Genetics, Faculdade de Medicina, University of São Paulo, 14100—Ribeirão Preto, SP., Brasil

Data for Apis mellifera indicate that the P-3 proteins and one esterase enzyme are controlled by two genes, P-3 and Est, with two alleles each. The frequency of the P-3 alleles is different in the two subspecies (adansonii and ligustica), that for P-3F in Italian bees being 46.9% and in African 0.5%. The frequency of EstF is 2.8% in both populations.

The Est locus has two codominant alleles and the locus P-3 has two incompletely dominant alleles; the heterozygote P-3 S/P-3F shows only an intermediate band. The two loci are not genetically linked.