The European dark bee (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 called after the geographic / political 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.
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TerrestrialTerrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land (e.g., cats, ants, snails), as compared with aquatic animals, which liv...
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OviparousOviparous animals are female animals that lay their eggs, with little or no other embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive...
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starts withThe 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 (5.7–6.4 mm (0.22–0.25 in)). Their common name (dark or black bee) is derived from their brown-black color, with only a few lighter yellow spots on the abdomen. On a pigmentation rating from 0 (completely dark) to 9 (completely bright yellow) 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 (segments of their abdomens) 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 (Bee Improvement & Bee Breeders Association) in Britain to identify wing veins (wing morphometry) 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.
