List of Apis mellifera subspecies

Subspecies of Europe

• Apis mellifera adami, classified by Ruttner, 1975 - The island of Crete.
• Apis mellifera artemisia, classified by Engel, 1999 - The steppes of Russia.
• Apis mellifera carnica, classified by Pollmann, 1879 - The Carniola region of Slovenia, the Eastern Alps and the northern Balkans - popular with beekeepers due to its extreme gentleness. The Carniolan honey bee tends to be quite dark in color and the colonies are known to shrink to small populations over winter and build very quickly in spring. It is a mountain bee in its native range and is a good bee for colder climates.
• Apis mellifera caucasia, classified by Pollmann, 1889 - The central Caucasus.
• Apis mellifera cecropia, classified by Kiesenwetter, 1860 - Southern Greece.
• Apis mellifera cypria, classified by Pollmann, 1879 - The island of Cyprus - this subspecies has the reputation of being very fierce compared to the Italian subspecies, from which it is isolated by the Mediterranean Sea.
• Apis mellifera iberiensis, classified by Engel, 1999 - The Iberian Peninsula.
• Apis mellifera ligustica, classified by Spinola, 1806 - The most commonly kept subspecies in North America, South America and southern Europe. They are kept commercially all over the world. They are very gentle, not very likely to swarm and produce a large surplus of honey. They have few undesirable characteristics. Colonies tend to maintain larger populations through winter, so they require more winter stores than other temperate zone subspecies. The Italian honey bee is light-colored and mostly leather-colored, but some strains are golden.
• Apis mellifera macedonica, classified by Ruttner, 1988 - Northern Greece, North Macedonia. Possibly synonymous with A. m. artemisia as described by Engel, 1999.
• Apis mellifera mellifera, classified by Linnaeus, 1758 - the dark-colored bee of northern Europe, also called the German black honey bee or the European dark honey bee. Domesticated in modern times and taken to North America in colonial times.
• Apis mellifera ruttneri, classified by Sheppard, Arias, Grech & Meixner in 1997 - The Maltese islands.
• Apis mellifera remipes, classified by Gerstäcker, 1862 - The Caucasus, Iran, the Caspian Sea.
• Apis mellifera siciliana, classified by Grassi, 1881 - The Trapani province and the island of Ustica of western Sicily.
• Apis mellifera sossimai, classified by Engel, 1999 - Ukraine and the northern Caucasus.
• Apis mellifera taurica, classified by Alpatov, 1935 - Crimea.

  Subspecies of Africa

• Apis mellifera adansonii, classified by Latreille, 1804 - Nigeria and Burkina Faso.
• Apis mellifera capensis, classified by Eschscholtz, 1822 - South Africa.
• Apis mellifera intermissa, classified by von Buttel-Reepen, 1906; Maa, 1953 - The northern part of Africa in the general area of Morocco, Libya and Tunisia. These bees are totally black in color. They are extremely fierce, but do not attack without provocation. They are industrious and hardy, but have many negative qualities that argue against their being favored in the honey or pollination industry.
• Apis mellifera jemenitica, classified by Ruttner, 1976 - Somalia, Uganda, Sudan and Yemen.
• Apis mellifera lamarckii, classified by Cockerell, 1906 - The Nile Valley of Egypt and Sudan. This mitotype can also be identified in honey bees from California.
• Apis mellifera litorea, classified by Smith, 1961 - The low elevations of East Africa.
• Apis mellifera monticola, classified by Smith, 1961 - The high altitude mountains at elevation between 1,500 and 3,100 metres of East Africa.
• Apis mellifera sahariensis, classified by Baldensperger, 1932 - The Moroccan desert oases of Northwest Africa. This subspecies faces few predators other than humans and is therefore very gentle. Moreover, because of the low density of nectar-producing vegetation around the oases it colonizes, it forages up to five miles, much farther than subspecies from less arid regions. Other authorities say that while colonies of this species are not much inclined to sting when their hives are opened for inspection, they are, nevertheless, highly nervous.
• Apis mellifera scutellata, classified by Lepeletier, 1836 - Central and East Africa; also as hybrid populations in South America, Central America and the southern United States. In an effort to address concerns by Brazilian beekeepers and to increase honey production in Brazil, Warwick Kerr, a Brazilian geneticist, was asked by Brazilian federal and state authorities in 1956 to import several pure East African lowland queens from Tanzania to Piracicaba, São Paulo State in southern Brazil. Due to a mishap, some of the queens escaped. The East African lowland queens eventually mated with local European honey bee drones and produced what is now known as the Africanized honey bee in South and North America. The intense struggle for survival of western honey bees in Sub-Saharan Africa is given as the reason that this subspecies is proactive in defending the hive and also more likely to abandon an existing hive and swarm to a more secure location. They direct more of their energies to defensive behaviors and less of their energies to honey storage. East African lowland honey bees are leather-colored and difficult to distinguish by eye from the darker strains of the Italian honey bee.
• Apis mellifera simensis, classified by Meixner et al, 2011 - Ethiopia.
• Apis mellifera unicolor, classified by Latreille, 1804 - Madagascar.

  Subspecies of the Middle East and Asia

• Apis mellifera anatoliaca, classified by Maa, 1953 - This subspecies is typified by colonies in the central region of Anatolia in Turkey and Iraq. It has many good characteristics, but is rather unpleasant to deal with in and around the hive.
• Apis mellifera meda, classified by Skorikov, 1929 - Iran.
• Apis mellifera pomonella, classified by Sheppard & Meixner, 2003 - The Tian Shan Mountains in Central Asia.
• Apis mellifera sinisxinyuan, Discovered in 2016 in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Urumqi, Xinjiang, China, this subspecies has a range that is the farthest east known for the species.
• Apis mellifera syriaca, classified by Skorikov, 1929 - The Near East and Israel.