Our Native Black Bee

Bee keeper Garth Matthews

I spoke recently to an old college friend of mine who shares my passion for the environment.  I haven’t seen him in years and, yes, we both have definitely aged!  He is now a keen bee keeper with a particular interest in preserving our Native Black Bee.  I have to admit, despite my concern for our bee population, to not knowing we had a particular breed in this country.  What’s more this breed has been disregarded by many breeders in favour of a more modern bee.  Here is a potted history of bees in the UK:

Our native Native Black Bee, the dark European honey bee - Apis mellifera mellifera - did not arrive until between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago.  This is post the last ice age - giving rise to suitable flora for the bees to feed on and before the melting ice cap created the channel that cut us off from Europe.  These were our sole type of bee until the 19th century.

From 1814 onwards a few of  the UK bee keepers imported other breeds of bee, in particular the Italian Caucasians bee, initially with very little effect upon the native bee population.   Sadly though, between the wars a mite affected our native bee so badly it came close to extinction with only a small number surviving in parts of Scotland and Ireland.  The outbreak was called the ‘Isle of Wight disease’.

This triggered far greater importing of bees, initially from Europe and then also from the USA, Australia and NewZealand.  Even now, with far greater  import restrictions, the bee population is still being topped up by major imports of largely Italian style queen bees. 

This is not good news for our native bees. 

The direct result of these imports is that the genetic mix of our honey bee is broad, and although natural selection still favours dark bees, many of the major genetic advantages of our original native dark bee have been lost. Even in Scotland where Apis mellifera mellifera numbers were still significant up to the late 1960s, these imports have had a detrimental effect.

So does this matter?

Collecting a swarm of British black bees

There is no other bee better adapted to our climate than our Native Black Bee.  Over the past 6,000 years it has evolved to withstand the extremes of climate in our country and is also more economically viable than any other bee.   It is the experience of people who keep our native bee that the bee will produce surplus honey every year, even during cold summers when other breeds of bees have to be fed sugar to keep them alive. This is down to a number of factors including its physical size and design with insulating overhairs as well as its quick breeding response to our changing weather, enabling them to have the necessary reserves to survive poor weather. 

There are bee keepers who have kept the native breed all their lives and who believe they have a much stronger resistance to mites and therefore can survive without chemical treatment.  This may be a consequence of the original Isle of White outbreak.

There are small pockets of pure Apis mellifera mellifera  in remote parts of the country and, handled very carefully, there is a real possibility of re-introducing these on a major scale to save this exceedingly valuable species.

If you wish to know more about our native bee visit BIBBA