Encouraging the new, old methods, for our native British Honeybee Conservation.

Habitat loss, pesticides and human interference threatens the British honey Bee and other natural pollinators in the UK. The qualities of our native honey bee, make it best suited to the British environment.

Our mission is to conserve and regenerate the native British Honey Bee (Apis Mellifera Mellifera) population within the British Isles, in conjunction with other pollinators and beneficial pollinator environments. Our aims are to increase the potential areas where the native British Bee can not just survive, but thrive.

Saving a native species is possible. We’ve done it before.

The British Honey Bee was once everywhere throughout the British Isles, in the early 20th century it was almost wiped out. Fortunately, they survived in a few areas. Our approach is to install our native honey bee species within initial specific areas around the UK. Using native honey bee breeders, our aim is to regenerate the population in clusters, starting in County Durham. Our aim is to increase the population from those initial areas to increase both the size and number of those clusters, to move into other areas of Britain.
Apis_mellifera_melliferaB&W

Ready to take the next step?

This is a movement that needs your help, we can’t do it just by ourselves. Fund raising is required to accelerate our reach and expand the British honey Bee population exponentially.
Whether you’re part of a large organisation wanting to sponsor dozens of hives, one person offering a one-off contribution, or a group of friends giving a monthly amount, everything helps.
Whatever you’re most comfortable contributing, whether that’s time to help achieve our advocacy goals, money to help us grow, or energy to push our conservation message to others, we need you on our team.

As well as the Native British Honey Bee, there are a number of imported species.

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The British Honey Bee

(Apis Mellifera Mellifera)

The British Bee has fewer swarms and replaces the queen approximately every 3 years. It has many important qualities that have evolved in the strain over thousands of years, making it entirely suited to our climate, over other imported sub-species and have been found to be easy to handle and docile.

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The Italian Honey Bee

(Apis Mellifera Ligustica)

The Italian honey bee is the most widely distributed of all honey bees, and has proved adaptable to most climates , but it is less well adapted in humid tropical regions. It is very prolific but brood rearing starts late and lasts long into late summer or autumn, irrespective of nectar flow.

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The Caucasian Honey Bee

(Apis Mellifera Caucasica)

The Caucasian honey bee is indigenous to the mountains and southern valleys of the Caucasus, to the Black Sea coast in Anatolia. The climate varies from subtropical on the coast to cool of the mountains, mountain bees are larger and darker, with longer overhair, than those from the lowland region 

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The Carniolan Honey Bee

(Apis Mellifera Carnica)

The Carniolan honey bee of Slovenia and Austria is the nearest relative of the Italian, but it is larger and darker, the characteristic yellow rings of the Italian Bee being replaced by dark bands. The carnica territory covers a large area of south-eastern Europe, and there are numerous regional variations. 

“A small group of well organised and committed individuals can change the world. That’s all that ever have and most likely, ever will.”
Graham F French
Founder

For over a century, well intentioned foreign honeybee imports have created a population of poorly suited, non-native honeybees, at the expense of our own British species.

Taking advantage of a non-existent disease, foreign bee importers promoted sales of their stock at the expense of our native honeybee.

This, together with other issues of habitat loss, chemical use, both commercial and domestic, the reduction of bee keepers and colonies in Great Britain have all played a part in the reduction of the native British Honeybee.

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