BIOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE (TAXONOMY) AND CLASSIFICATION OF HONEY BEE. CURRENT STATE AND PROBLEMS

The chronology of scientific research achievements in the process of determining the biological nomenclature and classification of honey bees and the implementation of the results obtained for use in the practice of beekeeping in the selection and preservation of aboriginal breeds (races) of bees in modern environmental conditions is highlighted. An attempt is made to focus this study in the field of analysis of the chronology of methods used in the historical aspect of determining the taxonomy of insects, in particular bees. At the same time, the problems and prospects of scientific research in modern economic and natural and climatic conditions of the development of the industry are reflected. It is shown that initially only morphometry was used worldwide to identify bee breeds. However, morphometric features are not always informative in identifying subspecies, since they are subject to variability under the influence of environmental conditions. Later, biochemical methods for identifying bee subspecies based on polymorphism of allozyme loci were developed. It is shown that at the same time, methods for identifying bee subspecies based on polymorphism of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) loci were developed. This polymorphism was successfully used in phylogenetic and phylogeographic studies of honey bees. The disadvantage of mtDNA markers is the exclusively maternal type of inheritance. At the same time, methods for identifying bee subspecies were developed taking into account polymorphism of nuclear DNA (nDNA) loci. Recently, methods for identifying bee subspecies based on SNP analysis have been developed. These markers have become widely used in population, evolutionary and phylogenetic studies of bees due to the development of next-generation sequencing methods NGS (Next Generation Sequencing) Illumina. SNP markers are characterized by high resolution due to their number and stable inheritance over several generations, which can be successfully used in genetic mapping, population and evolutionary studies, selection of lines for economically useful traits and disease resistance, identification of taxonomic affiliation of bee families.