A suite of 10 morphological characters was identified that discriminat
ed between the 2 southern African honeybee races, Apis mellifera capen
sis and A m scutellata. Collections of samples from 32 localities whic
h spanned the sub-continent from the west coast to the east coast and
ranged from Cape Town in the south to north of Johannesburg were used
to define the current distribution of the 2 races and the hybrid zone
between them. The data obtained from the morphometric analysis are in
good agreement with data on laying worker reproduction.