A NEW campaign has been launched to save Scotland’s endangered native honey bee, which is under threat from disease and imported honey bees.
The Scottish Native Honey Bee Society, which launches in April, aims to redress the balance in favour of the native strain.
“We have reached a crucial juncture for the survival of our own Scottish honey bees,” said commercial beekeeper Gavin Ramsay, owner of Tay Bees and Honey.
“Scottish native honey bees are a brown bee with a reputation for frugality which helps them withstand even the dreichest of Scottish weather. If we don’t take action to reverse their decline we may see them disappear.”
Some of the problems facing the bee, also called the European Dark Honey Bee or Apis mellifera mellifera, come from a resurgence in beekeeping.
Pests are likely to have moved with imported stocks. One example is the Varroa mite which arrived in 1992.
It has almost completely eradicated wild honey bees in Scotland and has significantly reduced native bee numbers.
“We want to raise awareness that there is a native honey bee in Scotland and that there is value in its conservation,” said research scientist, Dr Ewan Campbell of the University of Aberdeen, who is also involved in the new society., “Disease and hybridisation are putting the native honey bee in real trouble here. We know, thanks to modern genetics and morphology, that small pockets of native honey bees do still cling on in some parts of Scotland, but for how long?”The first meeting of the Scottish Native Honey Bee Society will take place at the Lovat Hotel in Perth on the 1st April. Anyone with an interest in honey bees is invited to attend. Please contact treasurer@snhbs.scot or visit www.snhbs.scot for more information
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