Bee races, bee breeds

Bee races, bee breeds

When it comes to returning honeybees to nature or reintroducing them into the wild, the question as to the bee race inevitably arises – an interesting and controversial topic.

It is a fact that Switzerland has been a natural habitat for the black bee Apis mellifera mellifera (nigra ecotype), also known as the dark bee, since the last Ice Age. The mellifera bee has been largely supplanted by imported and new breeds and mainly replaced by the Carinthian bee, also called the carnica bee. In addition, some locations are strongly dominated by the Buckfast bee, a man-made breed. Other imported races such as e.g. the ligustica from Italy have also left their traces.

In principle, FreeTheBees welcomes the efforts of ProSpecieRara (prospecierara.ch) and the mellifera beekeepers (mellifera.ch) for the preservation of the original race. However, the black bee is kept alive through a breeding programme of above mentioned organisations. Human criteria override natural selection. Neither the carnica nor the mellifera is adapted to the current natural conditions. Both races currently struggle to survive without any intervention from the beekeeper. What we know today as “purebred” black bee conforms to human breeding criteria and is no longer subject to natural selection. Nature in the form to which the black bee originally was adapted has drastically changed since then.

That is why FreeTheBees rather focuses on natural selection and not on the actual race. We dream of a Switzerland with mellifera bees that are subject to natural selection. But this is exactly what we think is virtually impossible to realise in practice under the current general conditions. Therefore, we accept the contemporary diversity of breeds as a given and let natural selection prevail. We leave it up to nature to decide which breeds should settle down where in which form. If – contrary to expectations – invasive breeds should develop, it goes without saying that such breeds would have to be kept under control.