Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Caucasians are dark gray to black with lighter gray stripes on the abdomen. Queens and
drones have dark gray to black abdomens.
Caucasians
(
Apis mellifera caucasica
)
Seldom used are Caucasian honey bees, developed in the Caucasus Mountains of
Eastern Europe. They reproduce very slowly in the spring and react well to available
resources during the summer. Like Carniolans, they respond to winter by reducing
their population and using honey stores sparingly. But, because they build slowly, they
swarm later in the spring than either their Italian or Carniolan cousins.
Caucasians are extremely gentle to work and are quiet on the comb when being ex-
amined. However, they tend to be susceptible to diseases, especially nosema. They also
use propolis in every place you can imagine, which makes working your hive extremely
difficult.
Caucasian workers are dark gray, with light gray stripes on their abdomens and
sometimes brown spots. Queens and drones are dark, like Carniolans.
Other Bee Varieties
Varroa mites (
Varroa destructor
, see the section “Maladies,” page 102) are parasitic on
both adult and larval honey bees and are thought to have evolved in Asia, along with
Apis cerana
, the Asian honey bee. This coevolution over eons allowed
Apis cerana
to
become resistant to, or tolerant of these mites.
The most common honey bees,
Apis mellifera
, originated in Africa and moved north
to Europe and are today referred to as European honey bees. They regionalized into the
other honey bee races (Italians, Carniolans, Caucasians, Macedonians, and others) and
they did not coevolve with varroa mites. When European bees moved (natural migra-
tion and man-assisted migration) to Asia varroa killed these invading European honey
bees by the billions.
European bees continued to die until beekeepers began using pesticides that were
lethal enough to kill the mites but not so lethal as to kill the bees. There are very
few chemicals that fill this niche. European bees moved nearly everywhere around the
world, and the mites (unintentionally) moved with them. At the time of this publica-
