Genetic verification of conservation measures of the gene pool of the Burzyan population of the dark forest honeybee in the "Bashkir Urals" biosphere reserve, Russia.

The genetic identity of Russian indigenous populations of the dark forest honeybee is gradually being lost due to spontaneous hybridization and gene introgression from other subspecies, which are transferred into the forest and foreststeppe zones for commercial beekeeping. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of various conservation and beekeeping practices in the complex biosphere reserve "Bashkir Urals" (the Southern Urals) in conserving the gene pool of the indigenous Burzyan bee population. We discovered that the variant Q of the COI-COII locus of mitochondrial DNA, which dominates in other bee subspecies, is absent in colonies in the remote landscape zones of this reserve.