Honey Black Bee Sicula Claudio Meli 250g

The Sicilian Black Bee is the native Sicilian bee.

With smaller wings than its cousins, black tergites (the rings that create its abdomen) black and yellowish dorsal hair, it is an infallible, workaholic, hard-working, faithful bee that is resistant to many diseases and parasites (such as Varroa Destructor) and acclimates like no other. It is the endemic bee of Sicily. Closely related to some North African subspecies, in Sicily it has found its Eden, the right microclimate, its home. Very docile when bred in genetic purity. It found itself seriously at risk of extinction in the decade between the 1970s and 1980s due to the transition from ancient beekeeping (performed with the help of ferula wood bugs; a more natural beekeeping) to modern, rational beekeeping (characterized by the advent of the hives we know today) and the massive importation of ligustic bees into Sicily. Fortunately, today the Black Bee lives happily and pampered on our island. Credit for this goes to Professor Pietro Genduso (1922 – 1999), who for so many years was interested in the preservation and study of the Sicilian honeybee. The Sicilian entomologist succeeded in conserving the species, identifying the island of Ustica as a safe site in which to isolate it to protect it from hybridization with other subspecies. Certain from the beginning that the black could repopulate Sicily, all of it, today Claudio meli is one of its custodians!