Apis mellifera iberiensis, or the Spanish bee (commonly misspelled as iberica), is a Western honey bee subspecies native to the Iberian Peninsula. It is also found in the Balearic Islands.
Apis mellifera iberiensis are very vigorous and active at temperatures at which other subspecies of bees are not leaving the hive, supporting long, cold winters. They have a length of the forewings with an average of 9.226 mm and 3.098 mm, while the width of the subspecies Apis mellifera mellifera is 9.381 mm and 3.0293 mm respectively.
The first description of this bee of the Iberian Peninsula was published in the magazine Bee World, made by Brother Adam. F. Ruttner described it in his book Biogeography and Taxonomy of Honeybees , but like several authors prior to him (e.g. Goetze, 1964) he erroneously equated this bee with the subspecies proposed by Skorikov (1929) as Apis mellifera iberica (Skorikov, however, proposed the name for a subspecies occurring in the Caucasus and based the name on the ancient Greco-Roman designation for the Georgian Kingdom, Caucasian Iberians, existing there in antiquity). Thus, the name as employed by Ruttner was an error, leaving Apis mellifera iberiensis as the only valid name for this subspecies of honey bees. B. Adam collected them on a trip he made in 1959 to Spain and Portugal.
A. m. iberiensis has the body size of European subspecies with narrower forewings and a wider abdomen. It is mostly dark brown to jet-black. The darkness is accentuated by the low tomentum and low hairiness. The queens are black almost uniform in colour. They are prolific and with high fertility controlled by environmental conditions. The closing membrane of the cells is watery. The breed is sensitive to some diseases.
Behaviour
They do not typically generate multiple queens (polygyny) in any given hive at swarming time. Their movements are fast and rather nervous. They exhibit quick defensive reaction, nervousness, and a propensity to swarm. They do make abundant use of propolis. One or two sentry bees are always present at the entrance of the hive. If the colony is disturbed, the sentries raise a persistent alarm. The hive attack anything that seems threatening for at least 24 hours.
Taxonomy
The name often applied to this race is A.m.iberica, an epithet originally proposed by Skorikov in his 1929 monograph on honey bees. Authors subsequent to Skorikov assumed in error that the iberica referred to the Iberian Peninsula and thereby quickly adopted the name for the race of bees living in Spain and bordering areas. However, the name iberica was based on a Caucasian race of honey bees, the epithet referring to the Greco-Roman designation for the Georgian Kingdom established in that region in antiquity. The true A. m. iberica of Skorikov has nothing to do with the western Mediterranean race of bees, and under the rules of nomenclature the name iberica is not valid for this lineage of honey bees. The corrected and valid name for the race is Apis mellifera iberiensis.
In a comparative study of A.m.iberiensis and five others sub-species of Apis mellifera including A.m.intermissa, A. m. monticola, A. m. scutellata, A. m. adansonii and A. m. capensis [7][8] (Smith, Palopoli, Taylor, Garnery, Cornuet, Solignac, Brown 1991) cleavage maps obtained through the use of restriction enzyme showed the Spanish Honey bee contains mtDNA similar to intermissa and also mellifera. Additionally A.m.intermissa belongs to a group shown by experiment to have similar mtD.N.A (mitochondrian D.N.A.), this including monticola, scuttelata, adansonii and capensis. [7][8][11]
In Spanish bee populations, mtDNA haplotypes of African bee strains were found to be frequently present (Smith 1991, Garnery et al. 1995) (Cornuet et al 1975, 1978, 1982, 1988; Ruttner 1988; Cornuet and Fresnaye 1989; Orante-Bermejos and Garcia-Fernandez 1995; Hepburn and Radloff 1996).
Migrating bee populations formed the original colonies of bee in western Europe, landing to eventually populate the continent from Africa across the Straits of Gibraltar.
Being beekeepers wasn’t on our plans but, the bees are essential for the fruit pollination in our orchard and, around here, with all the other farmers heavy use of pesticides, bees are becoming scarce and rare. So, when a first swarm of wild bees got interested in an upside down plastic pot we had left in the field, after planting a tree, we saw our opportunity to take matters into our own hands and grow the bees ourselves by catching that swarm.
For now, it’s working like a charm. We will keep you posted in the next few months with a few more videos on the subject.
Report
Revisiting the Iberian honey bee (Apis mellifera iberiensis) contact zone: maternal and genome-wide nuclear variations provide support for secondary contact from historical refugia
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25930679/
Evolutionary history of the Iberian honey bee (Apis mellifera iberiensis): a genome-wide approach
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277247041_Evolutionary_history_of_the_Iberian_honey_bee_Apis_mellifera_iberiensis_a_genome-wide_approach
