Native European honey bees are vanishing fast in some countries
Machlowska J, Gerula D, Oleksa A, Kok H, McCormack GP
Pollinators
The bees pollinating your tomatoes and apple trees aren't all the same, and swapping out locally adapted wild strains for one commercial variety everywhere could leave crops and wildflowers more vulnerable when conditions change.
There's a native dark honey bee that's lived in parts of Europe for thousands of years, adapted to local weather and plants. But beekeepers increasingly buy queens from commercial breeders, and those imported bees are interbreeding with the natives and diluting their unique traits. Researchers measured wing shapes from thousands of bee colonies and found the native bees are disappearing fast in some regions, like northeastern Poland, while holding on in others, like Spain and Ireland, meaning conservation efforts need to be tailored country by country.
Key Findings
Analysis of 29,043 wing images from 1,342 colonies across ten countries found 63.7% belonged to native lineage M, 27.5% to lineage A, 7.9% to lineage C, and 0.8% to lineage O.
Native lineage M honey bees remain prevalent in unprotected populations in Portugal, Spain, and Ireland, as well as in officially protected populations elsewhere.
A pronounced decline of native lineage M was documented specifically in unprotected populations in northeastern Poland, showing genetic erosion from commercial queen introduction.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists studied wing shapes from over 29,000 honey bees across ten countries and found that native dark European honey bees are holding steady in places like Spain, Portugal, and Ireland, but are being rapidly replaced by commercial bee strains in Poland, raising concerns about losing genetic diversity important for pollination.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Country specific hybridization of honey bees from lineage M.
Honey bees are essential pollinators supporting agricultural production and wild plant diversity. In evolutionary lineage M, some populations are threatened by genetic erosion caused by the widespr...
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