Italian honey bee

How to recognise it

Distinctly lighter than most European honey bees, with clear golden-yellow bands on the front abdominal segments and pale hair. The colour is the reason for the popularity of the 'golden Italian' strains, and it varies from leather-brown to a very pale yellow depending on the line.

• Pale golden-yellow abdominal banding, lighter than any other widely kept subspecies.
• In a hive, a large brood nest maintained well into autumn.
• Notably calm on the comb — bees stay put when a frame is lifted rather than running.
• Subspecies identification by eye is unreliable in practice; most managed colonies are hybrids.

Body length 10–15 mm (typically 12 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

30,000–70,000 individuals

Colony lifespan

Several years.

Winter

Clusters as all honey bees do, but maintains a larger winter population and keeps rearing brood later into autumn and earlier in spring than most subspecies. That costs stores, which is why Italian colonies consume more winter feed and do poorly in long hard winters.

Castes

Queen, Workers, Drones

Nesting

Wax comb in a cavity

Cavity-nesting on multiple parallel wax combs, as all Apis mellifera subspecies are.

Carries pollen

Corbicula (pollen basket) on the hind leg

On the wing

January to December

Managed year-round; brood rearing continues later and starts earlier than in most subspecies.

Lifecycle

1. 1Early and prolonged brood rearingBuilds up early in spring and continues rearing brood late into autumn, producing large populations that suit a long forage season.
2. 2Low swarming tendencyMarkedly less inclined to swarm than Carniolan stock, which is a substantial part of its commercial appeal.
3. 3Winter consumptionThe large late-autumn brood nest means high winter stores consumption, and colonies can starve in a long confinement that a more frugal subspecies would survive.

Where it lives and what it does

Habitat

Managed apiaries worldwide, and feral colonies wherever the climate suits.

Distribution

Native to the Italian peninsula south of the Alps, and now the dominant managed subspecies across North and South America, Australia, New Zealand and much of Europe.

Behaviour

Calm on the comb, prolific, and inclined to keep foraging and brood rearing whenever conditions allow rather than shutting down. That optimism is an advantage in a long season and a liability in a short one — Italian colonies will rear brood into a dearth and eat their stores doing it. They are also more prone to robbing weaker colonies than most subspecies.

Pollination role

The workhorse of managed crop pollination worldwide. Large populations, early build-up and calm handling make it the default choice for almond, orchard and field pollination contracts.

Very high through colony size and manageability rather than per-visit efficiency, as with all honey bees.

Honey

Stores a harvestable surplus

Excellent and prolific, and it produces very white cappings, which matters commercially for comb honey. Its tendency to keep brood rearing late means a beekeeper must watch autumn stores carefully.

Relationship with people

How people interact with it

The most commercially significant honey bee subspecies on earth, and the one whose export from Italy from the 1850s onwards reshaped beekeeping globally. That global movement of stock is also one of the principal routes by which varroa, viruses and other parasites were spread between continents.

Management

Suits long warm seasons and steady forage. In cold-winter or short-season regions Carniolan or locally adapted stock generally overwinters better and consumes less.

Conservation

Not of conservation concern as a managed animal. The conservation question is what its worldwide export did to native subspecies — the European dark bee in particular has been hybridised almost out of existence across much of its range.