The dark European honeybee Endangered wild animal and cultural heritage at the same time
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The dark bee
A treasure of nature
The dark bee
The dark bee (Apis mellifera mellifera) is the old original bee species of Northern Europe. It was found in Germany until around 1850 as a wild bee, in wild beekeeping (Zeidel beekeeping) and in traditional basket beekeeping. Subsequently, it was completely replaced by more efficient, bred bee species.
Lifestyle and behavior
It is characterized by its robust nature, its pronounced flying power and its resistance to cold. It is an important pollinator in our ecosystem, as it gathers in a more diverse way and flies less for a mass harvest. This collecting behavior has an influence on the honey composition and thus also on the taste of the honey.
Characteristics of the dark bee
In biological systematics, the species of the genus Apis are differentiated according to morphological characteristics. Important characteristics for distinguishing the species are, in addition to body size, the wing veining and coloration characteristics. The dark bee can be distinguished from the other subspecies of the western honey bee by its very dark chitinous shell and the dark brown to black hairs on the thoracic segment.
Trait testing plays an important role in the conservation breeding of the dark bee. The most important and safest feature is the veining of the wings. Here we determine the cubital index (below 2.0), dumbbell index (below 0.9) and the discoid displacement (must be negative). This always involves the position or the ratio of the lengths of the joining wires to each other.
The dark bee is the largest of all western honey bees in terms of length and width.
Their overcoat is considerably longer than that of all other subspecies.
