African mountain honey bee

How to recognise it

Larger and considerably darker than the lowland African honey bee, with dense long hair that is a straightforward adaptation to cold at altitude. Substantially blacker than the yellow-banded lowland subspecies.

• Large, dark and densely haired, unlike the smaller yellow lowland African bees.
• Found only at high altitude in East African mountains, generally above 2,000 m.
• In a hive, notably calm behaviour compared with lowland African stock.
• Reliable identification requires morphometrics; altitude is the most useful practical indicator.

Body length 11–15 mm (typically 13 mm).

Biology

Social organisation

Eusocial, colony survives the winter

Overlapping generations, division of labour, and a colony that persists through winter as a cluster. Honey bees, and the reason they store honey at all.

Colony size at peak

15,000–50,000 individuals

Colony lifespan

Several years.

Winter

No true winter, but genuine cold at altitude. Colonies cluster on cold nights and forage in conditions that ground lowland African bees.

Castes

Queen, Workers, Drones

Nesting

Wax comb in a cavity

Nests in tree cavities and rock crevices, and is kept in log and frame hives in the East African highlands. Less prone to abscond than lowland African stock, which makes it more practical to keep.

Carries pollen

Corbicula (pollen basket) on the hind leg

On the wing

January to December

Active year-round, with activity governed by altitude and flowering rather than by season.

Lifecycle

1. 1Cold toleranceForages at temperatures that keep lowland African bees in the nest, and clusters at night at altitude.
2. 2Lower swarming and abscondingMarkedly less inclined to swarm or abandon a nest than the lowland subspecies, which is the trait beekeepers value.
3. 3Steady colony lifeMaintains colonies year-round with brood rearing governed by mountain flowering.

Where it lives and what it does

Habitat

High-altitude forest, moorland and Afroalpine zones on East African mountains, generally between 2,000 and 3,000 metres.

Distribution

Kilimanjaro, Mount Meru, Mount Kenya, the Ruwenzori and the Ethiopian highlands, in isolated populations separated by lowland unsuitable for it.

Behaviour

A cold-adapted island population in a continent of heat-adapted bees. Each mountain holds a separate population, effectively isolated by the lowlands between, which makes the subspecies a set of small distinct gene pools rather than one continuous one.

Pollination role

An important pollinator of Afromontane flora and of highland agriculture, including the coffee grown at these altitudes.

Very high, and specifically valuable for flying in cool mountain conditions.

What it forages on

Afromontane forest and moorland flora, plus highland crops including coffee.

Honey

Stores a harvestable surplus

Productive, and the bee behind much of the highland honey of Ethiopia and East Africa — including the white honey of Tigray, produced at altitude by populations of this general type.

Relationship with people

How people interact with it

Kept across the East African highlands in traditional log and bark hives and increasingly in frame hives. Its gentleness relative to lowland African stock makes highland beekeeping considerably more approachable.

Conservation

Not formally threatened and structurally vulnerable: each mountain population is small and isolated, and warming pushes suitable altitude upwards on mountains that do not get taller. Hybridisation with lowland stock moving upslope is a further concern.