OF THE NATIVE BLACK BEE 

After the last Ice Age until about a century back, honeybees in Northern Europe were described as Black Bees. Due to changes in farming practices during the Victorian period and, in the UK, after the devastating “Isle of Wight Disease” outbreak in the early 1900’s, numbers tumbled. To restore their stocks, British beekeepers imported new colonies, most notably from Italy. In the resulting hybridisation the indigenous Black Bee appeared to go extinct in these islands. (Except on the island of Ireland).

However, small populations of Black Bees seemingly hung-on in isolated parts of North Wales, East Anglia and West Sussex being quietly rediscovered this century with a media splash in 2012. There is now a DEFRA promoted conservation program supported by beekeepers across the UK, seeking to save and promote these native creatures and their potentially invaluable genetics.

Pure bred Black Bees, as the name implies, are darker in colour than their hybridised cousins and, apparently, have a tiny dots on their abdomens. Several of our hives display Black Bee heritage.