Bee Wing Morphometry.

It was an “Identify our native honey bee” day today which was, by and large, very interesting. However, I do tend to switch off when the discussion gets around to wing morphometry. Some thirty years ago, three local beekeepers did a lot of valuable work on this subject, measuring the vital statistics of bees throughout Britain and coming to the conclusion that Brother Adam was way off when he claimed that the British dark bee was dead, and then set about creating the “perfect” bee for Britain by hybridising of a variety of imported bees that were totally unsuited to our climate. Importing biological material has created many problems with the British countryside dating back to when the Romans brought in both sycamore trees and rabbits. More recently there was the desire to import plants like Rhododendrons which have taken over vast areas of the west coast of Scotland and then mink, grey squirrel and coypu. Diseased elm and ash followed causing their own brand of havoc; then cattle were imported with neosporosis and bees with their varroa mites.
 
Back to the plot, thirty years ago, morphometry was the best scientific tool we had but it threw up a lot of false positives. If it told you that the specimens were not native, then you could assume it was right; but if it told you they were, then you might as well toss a coin to decide. Now, I can afford to have a sample of bees tested out of casual interest; I don’t intend to do it but, since the price is so low, it has been possible to check the validity of other tests. It has also enabled us to establish fairly reliable visual tests: body shape, hair length and colour on the various parts of the bee and so-on. Having identified promising samples, they can then put them through DNA testing to verify the preliminary findings.
 
This particular wing is compliant with the specification for a native bee which, knowing it’s provenance, it should be.