Types of Honey Bees: Species, Strains and Which to Choose
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There are two ways to answer “what types of honey bees are there?” Biologically, there are roughly a dozen honey bee species in the genus Apis, and only one of them, the western honey bee (Apis mellifera), is kept across Europe, the Americas and most of the world. For beekeepers, the useful answer is the strains of that one species you can actually buy: Italian, Carniolan, Russian, Buckfast, Caucasian, Saskatraz and VSH lines.
This guide covers both, with a comparison table and advice on which bees suit a first hive. If you are trying to identify a bee in your garden rather than choose one for a hive, see our field guide to types of bees instead.
Honey bee species
Taxonomists recognize somewhere between 8 and 12 species of Apis, depending on how they split closely related groups. All but the western honey bee are native to Asia. They fall into three groups.
Cavity-nesting honey bees
- Western honey bee (Apis mellifera). Native to Europe, Africa and the Middle East, now kept worldwide. It nests in enclosed cavities with multiple parallel combs, which is why it adapts so well to boxes like the Langstroth hive. Every strain in the table below belongs to this species.
- Eastern or Asian honey bee (Apis cerana). Kept in hives across much of Asia. It is smaller, builds smaller colonies, and stores less honey, but it is the original host of the varroa mite and copes with it far better than mellifera. It also has defenses against hornets, such as balling an attacker and cooking it with body heat.
Dwarf honey bees
Apis florea and Apis andreniformis are the smallest honey bees. Each colony builds a single, palm-sized comb draped over a branch in the open, in southern Asia and parts of the Middle East. They are not kept in hives, though people do collect their honey.
Giant honey bees
Apis dorsata and the Himalayan cliff bee (Apis laboriosa) build one huge open comb, sometimes more than a yard across, hanging from cliffs, tall trees or buildings. They are highly defensive. Their honey is harvested from the wild by traditional honey hunters in Nepal, India and Southeast Asia.
Honey bee strains beekeepers buy
Within Apis mellifera there are about two dozen geographic subspecies, often called races. Commercial queen breeders sell a few of them, plus bred lines and hybrids built from them. Keep in mind that most queens are open mated, so your colony carries drone genetics from whatever bees live near the breeder, and traits vary from one queen to the next.
Italian bees
Apis mellifera ligustica is the most widely kept honey bee in North America. Italians are light golden with bright bands, gentle, and build up to large colonies that make a lot of honey. The downsides: they keep rearing brood late into fall, so they eat through winter stores quickly, and they are prone to robbing weaker hives.
Carniolan bees
Apis mellifera carnica comes from Slovenia and the surrounding Alpine and Balkan region. Carniolans are darker gray-brown, very gentle, and winter in a small cluster that uses little food. They build up fast in spring when the flow starts, which also means they are quick to swarm if you do not give them room.
Russian bees
Russian bees come from the Primorsky region of far-eastern Russia, where they lived alongside varroa for more than a century. The USDA’s honey bee lab in Baton Rouge imported them in 1997 and selected them for mite resistance. They overwinter well in small clusters and build up late, matching their brood to the nectar flow. They tend to keep queen cells in the hive, swarm readily, and can be more defensive than Italians or Carniolans.
Buckfast bees
Buckfast is a hybrid line developed by Brother Adam at Buckfast Abbey in England, starting after tracheal mites wiped out many British colonies in the early 1900s. It blends several races and was selected for gentleness, low swarming, good honey crops and disease resistance. Later generations can turn defensive if queens are allowed to mate with local drones, as described in a Buckfast experiment gone wrong.
Caucasian bees
Apis mellifera caucasia comes from the Caucasus Mountains between the Black and Caspian Seas. Caucasians are dark, very gentle, and have the longest tongue of the common races, which helps on deep flowers such as clover. They build up slowly in spring and use a great deal of propolis, which makes frames sticky to work. They are harder to find from US breeders than they once were.
Saskatraz bees
Saskatraz is a hybrid line from a Saskatchewan, Canada breeding program begun in 2004, with Russian, Carniolan and Buckfast among its founding stock. Colonies are selected under natural mite pressure, without miticides, for honey production, wintering, temperament and varroa tolerance. Mite tolerance still varies between daughter queens, so you should keep monitoring.
VSH lines
VSH, short for Varroa Sensitive Hygiene, is a trait rather than a race. Workers with the trait detect brood cells where a varroa mite is reproducing and remove the pupa, which interrupts the mite’s breeding. USDA researchers developed the trait, and breeders now sell VSH or high-VSH queens in Italian, Carniolan and other backgrounds. Read more in VSH and breeding bees to fight varroa.
Honey bee strains compared
These are general tendencies reported by breeders and extension services. Local conditions and the individual queen matter as much as the label.
| Strain | Temperament | Winter hardiness | Honey production | Swarming | Mite resistance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Italian | Very gentle | Fair; large winter cluster eats a lot | High | Moderate | Low |
| Carniolan | Very gentle | Very good | High in a strong flow | High | Low to moderate |
| Russian | Moderate; can be defensive | Very good | Moderate to good | High | High |
| Buckfast | Gentle (first generation) | Good | High | Low | Moderate |
| Caucasian | Very gentle | Good | Moderate; slow spring start | Low | Low |
| Saskatraz | Gentle | Very good | High | Moderate | Moderate to good |
| VSH lines | Depends on background | Depends on background | Depends on background | Depends on background | High |
No strain on this list is fully varroa-proof. Even “resistant” bees need regular mite counts, and many still need treatment. See how varroa mites affect colonies for what to watch for.
Which honey bee is best for beginners?
For most new beekeepers, Italians or Carniolans are the easiest start. Both are gentle, widely available as packages and nucs, and forgiving of the mistakes everyone makes in year one.
- Mild winters or long summers: Italians, which reward a long season with big honey crops.
- Cold winters: Carniolans, Saskatraz or Russians, which winter on less food. Be ready to add space early in spring to head off swarms.
- Want to treat less for mites: Russians or VSH queens, accepting a little more defensiveness with Russians.
Buying from a breeder in a climate like yours often matters more than the strain name, because those bees are already adapted to your seasons. Our guide on where to buy bees explains packages versus nucs, and our beehive starter kit picks cover the equipment. Avoid Africanized honey bees, which are highly defensive and present in parts of the southern US.
The three castes inside every colony
People sometimes mean “types of honey bees” in a different sense: the three kinds of bee inside one hive.
- Queen. One per colony, the only fertile female. She develops in 16 days from egg, mates in flight early in life, and can lay up to around 1,500 eggs a day in peak season. More in the role of the queen bee.
- Workers. Infertile females that make up almost the entire colony. They develop in 21 days and move through jobs as they age: cleaning, nursing brood, building comb, guarding, then foraging. A summer worker lives about six weeks; winter bees live for months.
- Drones. Males, which develop in 24 days. They have no stinger and do no hive work; their job is to mate with queens from other colonies. Workers push them out in fall.
Frequently asked questions
How many types of honey bees are there?
There are roughly 8 to 12 species of honey bee, depending on the classification used. The western honey bee alone has about two dozen subspecies, and breeders sell many more lines and hybrids built from them.
What is the most common honey bee in the US?
The Italian honey bee. It has been the standard commercial bee in North America for well over a century, and most packages sold each spring have Italian or Italian-hybrid queens.
What is the gentlest type of honey bee?
Carniolans, Caucasians and Italians are all known for calm temperaments. Handling matters too: a colony opened on a warm, sunny afternoon during a nectar flow is usually calmer than one disturbed in cool, cloudy weather.
Can you mix different strains of honey bees?
Yes. You can keep different strains in separate hives in the same apiary, and all Apis mellifera strains interbreed freely. Over a few generations of open-mated queens, colonies drift toward local mixed genetics, which is why many beekeepers buy new queens to keep a strain’s traits.
Are honey bees native to North America?
No. There are no native honey bees in the Americas. European colonists brought the western honey bee in the early 1600s, and it has been kept here ever since alongside roughly 4,000 species of native wild bees.
