Heritability and genetic progress for a worker character in Apis mellifera 

J. M. Cornuet

The classical relationship for genetic progress (D_G♀= i h² Ơ_p) does not apply to a worker character in the honeybee (Apis mellifera) since an aunt-niece relationship takes the place of the parent-offspring relationship. When the genealogy involves only mother-daughter links (no relationship through males), the heritability sensu stricto need not be estimated, but can be substituted by the product fh², where f is the average coefficient of relationship between the workers of a colony. This product is equal to the mother-daughter regression coefficient or twice the within-family correlation.