• Dedication
• Foreword by Philip Denwood
• Acknowledgements
• Author’s Foreword

1. Basic Considerations
   1. My background and orientation
   2. Keep local and keep close to nature
   3. Work with natural selection, not against it
2. Discrimination of Honeybee Subspecies
   1. Wing morphometry
   2. DNA analysis
   3. The importance of genetic variation
   4. Preserve queen lines
3. The British “Dark” Bee
   1. The native bee in Britain
   2. Obtaining native bees
   3. Siting your hives
   4. Seasonal climatic change
   5. Hazards of winter for southern bees
   6. Benefits of winter for northern bees
   7. Seasonal management
   8. Feeding bees
   9. Global warming
4. Population Considerations
   1. Worldwide threats to honey bee survival
   2. Genetic variation and the extinction vortex
   3. The ultimate limiting factor, csd polymorphism
   4. Loss of genetic variation through use of “breeder queens”
   5. An explanation
   6. Brood viability and over-winter survival
   7. The most adverse consequences of breeder queens
   8. Can a bad situation be saved?
   9. Summary: to ensure over-winter survival of your colonies
5. Inherited Attributes and Behaviours of Native Bees
   1. Gentleness
   2. Breeding for gentleness
   3. Foraging and flight
   4. The honey harvest
   5. Pollen collection
   6. Acclimatisation
   7. Overview
   8. Inherited characters according to caste and sex
6. Reproduction
   1. Proneness to swarm
   2. Non-prolificacy
   3. Longevity
   4. Supersedure
   5. Brood breaks
   6. Culling bees
   7. How many drones are enough?
   8. Inbreeding
7. Disease and Disease Resistance
   1. Resistance to varroa
   2. A varroa trap?
   3. Chalkbrood
   4. Nosema
   5. Foul brood
   6. Wax moth
   7. Acarine disease
   8. Isle of Wight Disease – an ongoing puzzle
   9. Infective bee paralysis?
   10. Nosema?
   11. Acarine disease?
   12. Chronic bee paralysis Virus?
   13. The Buckfast bee
8. Record Keeping and Security
   1. Hive identity
   2. Report
   3. Recommendations
   4. Social and legal issues
   5. Camouflage
9. Evolution of the British mellifera Genome
   1. Disease resistance
   2. Nosema
   3. Foul brood
   4. Wax moth
   5. Acarine disease
   6. Overview
10. Conclusions
    1. Colonies need community
    2. Future proofing
    3. Management priorities
    4. Mellifera’s dynasty
    5. To a Dark Lady

• Appendix: How Northern native British bees, A. m. mellifera L. overcome varroa mites
• Glossary
• Index

REVIEW BY NORMAN CARRECK NDB THE BEEKEEPERS QUARTERLY No.158, DECEMBER 2024

This is an important book written by a retired genetics lecturer. I was pleasantly surprised as the book is neither theoretical nor genetics heavy, but is mainly written from his own personal experience of managing near native bees in Northumberland.

As is stated in the introduction, the book builds on Beowulf Cooper’s “The honey bees of the British Isles” (1986), which did much to destroy the myth that all native bees were wiped out by the “Isle of Wight Disease” in the early 20th Century. Since then, numerous molecular studies have confirmed that in many parts of the British Isles, near native A. m. mellifera bees still exist, although introgression from non-native strains is sadly, very common. The further one goes away from south east England, the more likely one is to find near native bees.

Pritchard covers methods for discriminating between populations, and goes into detail about classical wing morphometry using cubital index and discoidal shift, but doesn’t really warn of the limitations of selection based just on a few characteristics. He is very dismissive of the widely used modern computer packages for wing morphometry, and molecular techniques are covered rather briefly.

On where to get native bees, Pritchard emphasises that local is key. He says while he has never selected on the basis of wing morphometry, but it has demonstrated that his own bees have a high degree of nativeness. He explains why inbreeding can be a problem, and the importance of not reducing diversity in a small breeding population.

He shares his beekeeping philosophy, based on biology and Darwinian natural selection. Whilst it is not “natural beekeeping” as such, it is based on letting nature take its course. In particular, he states that bees should be allowed to get cold in winter. This runs against some current ideas that conventional bee hives are unsuitable because they are not insulated. He argues that near native bees are adapted to cold unlike strains imported from the Mediterranean. He notes work demonstrating that the original ranges of European honey bee sub species correlate well with mean summer temperatures, but not with winter temperatures. This suggests that it is generally too cold for imported bees to thrive in the north of England.

A A key trait he observes in his bees is varroa tolerance based on grooming behaviour, evidenced by damaged mites on the floor. His bees are treatment-free, but his bees experience a large break in brood rearing over winter, when varroa mites cannot reproduce leading to low mite numbers. So, his approach may not succeed with colonies kept in southern England, where often there is a minimal winter brood break.

Surprisingly, this book's list of references is sparse and omits many key references. There is some repetition, and some photographs are poorly reproduced. However I still recommend it.