ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the published studies on allozymes of Asian honey bees. Gel electrophoresis of enzymes, the protein products of genes, provided biologists with the first technique that allowed them to examine genetic diversity directly. It was soon recognized that this unanticipated wealth of genetic variability at both the population and species levels provided new sets of characters that could be useful for phylogenetic inference. In 1988, Makhdzir Mardan of the Universiti Pertanian Malaysia provided specimens of Apis cerana, A. dorsata, and A. koschevnikovi to Gan Yik Yuen for preliminary allozyme analyses. The results indicated there was substantial polymorphism which seemed promising to quantify in more detail. The relatively large number of polymorphic isozymes and shared alleles between species leaves open the possibility of fruitful application of clustering programs which will allow for phylogenetic and biogeographic inferences to be drawn.
