European dark bee
The Apis mellifera mellifera is a subspecies of the western honey bee, evolving in central Asia, with a proposed origin of the Tien Shan Mountains and later migrating into eastern and then northern Europe after the last ice age from 9,000BC onwards. Its original range included the southern Urals in Russia and stretched through northern Europe and down to the Pyrenees. They are one of the two members of the 'M' lineage of Apis mellifera, the other being in western China. Traditionally they were called the Black German Bee, although they are now considered endangered in Germany. However today they are more likely to be named after the region in which they live, such as the British black bee, the Native Irish Honey Bee, the Cornish black bee and the Nordic brown bee, even though they are all the same subspecies, with the word "native" often inserted by local beekeepers, even in places where the bee is an introduced foreign species. It was domesticated in Europe and hives were brought to North America in the colonial era in 1622 where they were referred to as the English Fly by the Native Americans.
Appearance
The A. m. mellifera can be broadly distinguished from other subspecies by their stocky body, abundant thoracal and sparse abdominal hair which is brown, and overall dark coloration. When viewed from a distance, they appear blackish or rich dark brown. They are large for honey bees though they have unusually short tongues. Their common name is derived from their brown-black color, with only a few lighter yellow spots on the abdomen. On a pigmentation rating from 0 to 9 the A. m. mellifera scores 2.1, for comparison a A. m. carnica scores a 1.3 and a A. m. ligustica scores a 7.8. In 2019 research concluded that honey bees in Ireland that were completely dark contained less A. m. mellifera DNA than bees with yellow to orange spots on their abdomens, and bees with pigmentation on their first and second tergites contained a comparable amount of A. m. mellifera DNA than the completely dark bees, the authors speculated that the completely dark bees had obtained their darker pigmentation from A. m. carnica DNA.Friedrich Ruttner worked closely with senior members of the BIBBA in Britain to identify wing veins to achieve "racial purity" in the breeding of their bees, culminating in the publication of their book The Dark European Honeybee. However the process depends on the exact measuring methods employed.
Character
A. m. mellifera is descended from the 'M' lineage of Apis mellifera, of which all bees to a greater or lesser degree have aggression when compared to the 'C' lineage.Honey bees containing A. m. mellifera DNA have an even greater reputation of aggression amongst beekeepers, which can increase in subsequent generations if left unchecked, although this characteristic can be overcome with continual selective breeding over some generations. They are nervous and aggressive to the extent that routine inspections will take longer, decreasing the enjoyment of managing their colonies. This characteristic is one that has been traditionally associated with A. m. mellifera going back to the now extinct Old British Black bee before the early 1900s: To quote Brother Adam who was the only beekeeper with first hand experience that committed his findings to paper:
In 2014-2017 a European wide survey was conducted with 621 colonies, which included the various subspecies kept by beekeepers, it found that the A. m. mellifera was the most aggressive, had the highest swarming tendency and the lowest hygienic behaviour - a trait closely linked with Varroa sensitive hygiene.
Characteristics
Negatives:- higher levels of aggression
- increased tendency to swarm
- lower resistance to varroa mites due to poorer hygienic behaviour
- prone to inbreeding due to habit of Apiary Vicinity Mating, resulting in increased aggression
- difficulty entering smaller flowers due to their larger size
- difficulty collecting nectar from longer flowers due to their shorter tongues
- slightly poorer pollinators of fruit trees and bushes in summer
- more prone to Balling the Queen, resulting in her death
- susceptible to brood diseases
- susceptible to a greater likelihood of Supersedure than other bees
- less prolific, population building up later in year, unable to take full advantage of a very early spring nectar flow
- A. m. mellifera Queens do not readily hybridize with non-A. m. mellifera Drones
Non-hybridization
Significance
The A. m. mellifera had become established from the Urals to northwestern Europe by the 1800s until the introduction of other bee subspecies, considered more suited to modern beekeeping, such as the A. m. carnica or the Buckfast bee, a breed of bee whose ancestry originally included the remnants of the old British black bee, which became extinct due to the Isle of Wight Disease.In the United States, research based on DNA sequencing analysis found DNA from the 'M' lineage of honey bees in the feral population of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Missouri, believed in part to be the DNA from imported bees of over 100 years ago.
Promotion and conservation areas
Dedicated organizations have been attempting to establish exclusive conservation areas for A. m. mellifera, also breeding groups have been set up to "establish racial purity" of "native strains" and others running courses to train beekeepers in being able to calculate the "racial purity" of their bees through wing morphometry. Other organizations are attempting to establish that the A. m. mellifera in their local geographic region are a distinct "variety", some even claiming it is a separate subspecies, of the A. m. mellifera subspecies, but to date there is no published research to support this, however through morphometry and DNA analysis local geographic strains may be able to be identified, albeit not consistent across the geographic population, in which the strain's characteristics show less morphometric variation and therefore less environmental adaptability. With one group even starting a "project to develop their own native breed of bee". Many promoters of the A. m. mellifera claim that the sub-species is endangered and under threat from imports, even though DNA analysis has been able to show that the amount of non-A. m. mellifera DNA within local populations of A. m. mellifera remains relatively low, with an Irish survey showing that 97.8% of sampled bees were determined to be pure A. m. mellifera, and a further study across eight northwest European countries showing that their A. m. mellifera populations were genetically pure.Nazi Germany
In 1937 the Third Reich implemented nativist policies to protect and promote the A. m. mellifera, as an extension of their ideology of "Blood and Soil", by banning imports of Honey Bees and regulating the breeding of bees, in which only registered breeders at designated locations were permitted to rear queens to supply German beekeepers; however a limited dispensation was made for a minority of A. m. carnica beekeepers in southern Germany constituting only 13% overall. But after the annexation of Austria in 1938 the amount of A. m. carnica breeders increased to 31%. In 1939 actions were taken to reduce the numbers of A. m. carnica being bred in Germany, resulting in the Native German Dark bee being promoted fore-mostly. Beekeeping literature at the time used the racial ideological vocabulary of the National Socialists, such as: "What is not race is chaff!" "Foreign drones are to be exterminated" and "But what use is it if one day a Jewish bastard is a genius, but our ethnic purity is destroyed in the process. It is no different with beekeeping, what use is the importation of foreign breeds... if our German bee is lost in the process ".However, starting in the winter of 1940 to 1942, beekeeping was devastated throughout Germany by huge colony deaths, later identified by Karl Von Frisch as a virulent strain of Nosema apis, through his work with the Nosema Council to try and tackle the problem; ironically it was this epidemic that saved Von Frisch from the Nazis' antisemitic policies, as his maternal Grandmother was Jewish, making him "25% Jewish".
As a result restrictions against the breeding of A. m. carnica was lifted and German beekeepers began to re-stock with more disease resistant Austrian A. m. carnica bees: After the war all National Socialism rhetoric was abandoned and breeding of bees was purely focused on performance and character. It was then decided by the German Beekeeping Associations to keep only the A. m. carnica bee due to its superior characteristics; as a result the Old German Dark bee is now considered an endangered sub-species in Germany.