2021 Survey for Scottish Native Honey Bees

Open to all beekeepers in Scotland

We hope 2021 will see a gradual easing of restrictions as the Covid pandemic comes under control. We have planned an extended search for native honey bees this year which involves an easy to use initial photo screening and further assessment by a team of experienced Conservation Project assessors.

Our aim is to find good strains of native and near-native honey bees that are endemic to Scotland.

Early May onwards is a good time to take photos across the tops of frames of an opened hive for an initial assessment. We propose to fund DNA analysis for the most promising samples and share the results with the owners.

If your bees appear uniformly dark with no yellow or orange banding of the abdominal segments, please consider entering them in the survey by contacting me at durkacz@hotmail.co.uk .

See further instructions are here.   We wish you a prosperous beekeeping season.