Western honeybee
The species called Western honeybees (Apis mellifera) are honeybees comprised of several subspecies or races. Apis mellifera was first classified by Carolus Linnaeus in 1758.
Subspecies originating in Europe
- Apis mellifera ligustica , classified by Spinola, 1806 - the Italian bee. The most commonly kept race in North America, South America and southern Europe. They are kept commercially all over the world. They are very gentle, not terribly inclined to swarm, and produce a large surplus of honey. They have few negative characteristics. Colonies tend to maintain larger populations through winter, so they require more winter stores (or feeding) than other temperate zone races. Italians are light colored, most leather colored, but some strains are golden.
- Apis mellifera carnica, classified by Pollmann, 1879 - Slovenia - better known as the Carniolan honeybee - popular with beekeepers due to its extreme gentleness. The Carniolan tends to be quite dark in color, and the colonies are known to shrink to small populations over winter, and build very quickly in spring. It is a mountain bee in its native range, and is a good bee for cold climates. It does not do well in areas with long, hot summers.
- Apis mellifera caucasica, classified by Pollmann, 1889 - Caucasus Mountains - This sub-species is regarded as being very gentle and fairly industrious. Some strains are excessive propolizers. It is a large honeybee of medium, sometimes grayish color.
- Apis mellifera remipes, classified by Gerstäcker, 1862 - Caucasus, Iran, Caspian lake.
- Apis mellifera mellifera, classified by Linnaeus, 1758 - the dark bee of northern Europe also called the German Honeybee - domesticated in modern times, and taken to North America in colonial times. These small, dark-colored bees, sometimes called the German black bee, have the reputation of stinging people (and other creatures) for no good reason at all.
- Apis mellifera iberiensis, classified by Engel, 1999 - the bee from the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal)
- Apis mellifera cecropia, classified by Kiesenwetter, 1860 - Southern Greece
- Apis mellifera cypria, classified by Pollmann, 1879 - The island of Cyprus - This sub-species has the reputation of being very fierce compared to the neighboring Italian sub-species, from which it is isolated by the Mediterranean Sea
- Apis mellifera sicula, classified by Montagno, 1911 - from the Trapani province and the island of Ustica of western Sicily
Subspecies originating in Africa
Several researchers and beekeepers describe a general trait of the African subspecies which is absconding, where the Africanized honeybee colonies abscond the hive in times when food-stores are low, unlike the European colonies which rather die in the hive.
- Apis mellifera scutellata, classified by Lepeletier, 1836 - (African honeybee) Central and West Africa.
- Apis mellifera capensis, classified by Eschscholtz, 1822 - the Cape bee from South Africa
- Apis mellifera sahariensis, classifed by Baldensperger, 1932 - from the Moroccan desert oases of Northwest Africa. This sub-species faces few predators other than humans and is therefore very gentle. Moreover, because of the low density of nectar-producing vegetation around the oases it colonizes, it forages up to five miles, much farther than sub-species from less arid regions. Other authorities say that while colonies of this species are not much inclined to sting when their hives are opened for inspection, they are, nevertheless, highly nervous.
- Apis mellifera intermissa, classified by von Buttel-Reepen, 1906; Maa, 1953 - Northern part of Africa in the general area of Morocco, Libya and Tunisia. These bees are totally black. They are extremely fierce but do not attack without provocation. They are industrious and hardy, but have many negative qualities that argue against their being favored in the honey or pollination industry.
- Apis mellifera major, classified by Ruttner, 1978 - from the Rif mountains of Northwest Morocco - This bee may be a brown variety of the Apis mellifera intermissa but there are also anatomic differences.
- Apis mellifera adansonii, classified by Latreille, 1804 - originates Nigeria, Burkina Faso now hybrids also in South America, Central America and the southern USA. In an effort to address concerns by Brazilian beekeepers and to increase honey production in Brazil, Warwick Kerr, a Brazilian geneticist, was asked by Brazilian Federal and State authorities in 1956 to import about 100 pure African queens (Apis mellifera adansonii) to Piracicaba-Sao Paulo State in the south of Brazil. In a mishap some queens escaped. The African queens eventually mated with local drones and produced what are now known as Africanized honey bees on the American continent. The intense struggle for survival of honeybees in sub-Saharan Africa is given as the reason that this sub-species is proactive in defending the hive , and also more likely to abandon an existing hive and swarm to a more secure location. They direct more of their energies to defensive behaviors and less of their energies to honey storage. African honeybees are leather colored, difficult to distinguish by eye from darker strains of Italian bees. (Behavioral Studies of Learning in the Africanized Honey Bee ( Apis mellifera L.); Brain Behav Evol 2002;59:68–86) [1]
- Apis mellifera unicolor, classified by Latreille, 1804 - Madagascar
- Apis mellifera lamarkii, classified by Cockerell, 1906 - (Lamarkian honeybee) of the Nile valley of Egypt and Sudan
- Apis mellifera litorea, classifed by Smith, 1961 - Low elevations of east Africa
- Apis mellifera nubica, ( Nubian honeybee) of Sudan
Subspecies originating in the Mid-East
- Apis mellifera macedonia, classified by Ruttner, 1988 - Northern Greece
- Apis mellifera ruttneri, classified by Sheppard, Arias, Grech & Meixner, 1997
- Apis mellifera meda, classified by Skorikov, 1829 - Iraq
- Apis mellifera adamii, classified by Ruttner, 1977 - Crete
- Apis mellifera armeniaca, Mid-East
- Apis mellifera anatolica, classified by Maa, 1953 - This race is typified by colonies in the central region of Anatolia in Turkey and Iraq. It has many good characteristics but is rather unpleasant to deal with in and around the hive.
- Apis mellifera syriaca, classified by Skorikov, 1829 - ( Syrian honeybee) Near East and Palestine
- Apis mellifera pomonella, classified by Sheppard & Meixner, 2003 - Endemic honey bees of the Tien Shan Mountains in Central Asia. This sub-species of Apis mellifera has a range that is the farthest East.
Sources
- A. I. Root's The ABC and XYZ of Beekeeping
External links
See also: Western honeybee
