Parents of the three races; Apis mellifera carnica (car), Apis mellifera ligustica (lig) and Apis mellifera lamarckii (lam), as well as their offspring's which were yielded from diallel cross (inbreed pure, cross and reciprocal cross) by using instrumental insemination (II) were used for determination of the number of constructed and reared queen cells in emergency and swarming cases during 2005 and 2006 years at the apiary of Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University at Shoubra El-Kheima.
The pure Egyptian bees (lam) or their hybrids either depend on dams (queens) or sires (drones) reared the highest number queen cells (in emergency and swarming cases) as compared with the other two races, followed by the Italian bees (lig) and Carnica bees (car). The later recorded the lowest number of queen cells.
The queen cells which were constructed and reared by the lam bee race either for emergency or for swarming showed high tendency of combining ability either generally or specifically with the other two races. Also, they had higher maternal inheritance when they used as a dam. Moreover their hybrid vigour showed a decreased in the number of queen cells comparing to the parent or pure line (inbred) when hybrid either as a dam or as a sire, but it was higher than the other hybridization. Although, heritability showed moderately estimates (h2d , h2s & h2P = 0.39, 0.19 & 0.29 for emergency and 0.47, 0.27 & 0.37 for swarming), it was higher than that in lig bee race(h2d , h2s & h2P = 0.23, 0.17 & 0.21 for emergency and 0.30, 0.18 & 0.25 for swarming), which came in the second order, and finally the car bee race(h2d , h2s & h2P = 0.15, 0.10 & 0.14 for emergency and 0.24, 0.16 & 0.20 for swarming). On the other hand, the estimation of the same genetic parameters for the rate of brood cells and colony strength were nearly vice versa where the lig bee race come first, followed by the car bee race and the lam bee race.