Turkish honey bees belong to the east Mediterranean mitochondrial lineage

Honey bees were collected from 12 localities in Turkey. The mitochondrial genomes of these bees were surveyed for the presence or absence of four restrictions sites that differentiate three lineages of honey bee mitochondrial DNA (west European, east Mediterranean and African). Based on these diagnostic sites, all samples match the east Mediterranean lineage. Samples from Thrace also possessed an additional XbaI restriction site in cytochrome oxidase I previously known only from Apis mellifera carnica