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Taking advantage from genetically modified queens that have desirable productive traits and behavior is an important factor in beekeeping. The current study was aimed to evaluate the performance of the 14th until 18th generations of breeding improved queens in Iranian Honey Bee Breeding Program, and their comparison with control queens kept in private apiaries. To evaluate the queens, specific questionnaires were designed and completed by beekeepers in their apiaries based on the performance of queens in third layer. The obtained results showed that the bred queens with 16 kg of honey production, average queen cell of 1.42, average calmness score of 3.36 and average aggressive score of 3.24 were significantly superior than control queens with 12.8 kg of honey production, average queen cell of 2.3, average calmness score of 2.88 and the average aggressive score of 2.92. According to the results of variance analysis, the effect of queen type (bred queen and control queen of beekeepers) on calmness, aggressive, swarming behavior and honey production were significant (P<0.01) but had no effect on overwintering. The effect of year and generation on calmness, aggressive behavior, swarming and honey production were significant (P<0.01) and also on overwintering at the lower level it was significant (P<0.05). Interaction of queen type×year was significant for calmness (P<0.01) and for swarming and honey production (P<0.05) but had no significant effect on other traits. The obtained results revealed that to protect the Iranian honeybee as a valuable genetic resource, while preserving the superiority of genetically improved queens and genetic stabilization of improved traits, prevention of sex alleles homozygosity which have direct effect on decreasing colonies performance, additional novel investigations against new problems of beekeeping industry are required.
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