A new study has proposed banning the importation of foreign bee species in order to protect the genetic status of the Maltese honey bee.
In a review of legislation related to the protection of the Maltese honey bee (Apis mellifera ruttneri), researchers David Chetcuti Dimech, Simone Borg, Abner Joe Buttigieg and Dylan Farrugia discuss the legal justification for banning foreign bee imports for the purpose of endemic biodiversity protection.
While endemic to the Maltese islands, the Maltese honey bee is a subspecies of the Western honey bee which has evolved to cope with the specific conditions of its geographical isolation in Malta, notably, the hot and arid summers.
The paper discusses how indiscriminate breeding between Maltese honey bees and other bee subspecies poses the risk of diluting its genetic strength through hybridisation, which the researcher said is cause for concern.
“Presently, no mechanisms are in place locally to stop importations of foreign honey bee subspecies. Enticed by the apocryphal ‘superior quality’ of foreign honey bee subspecies or hybrid strains, beekeepers have a free hand to import colonies,” they said.
“This phenomenon is indeed a global concern. This poses a number of existential risks to the endemic Maltese honey bee subspecies. Notably, it directly results in the increasing hybridization of the Maltese honey bee due to the indiscriminate mating between the local colonies and the imported foreign colonies.
“Consequently, this genetic pollution makes the honey bee less adapted to the local environmental conditions, and will eventually drive the Maltese race towards an unnecessary extinction.”
As it is physically impossible to prevent different bee species from interbreeding, the only feasible method of protecting the Maltese honey bee from genetic dilution is to ban all imports of Apis mellifera subspecies, the paper proposes, followed by eradication of imported colonies and purification from foreign traits.
The first step to achieving this, according to the study, is to declare all non-native bee species as invasive alien species and further to that ban all imports of bees that are not Apis mellifera ruttneri from entering Malta.
This can also be achieved, they said, through a species protection notice issued by the Environment Resources Authority, which could include forbidding the importation of foreign bees as a protective measure to preserve local bees.
“This paper proposes that the Maltese honey bee is best protected through ad hoc subsidiary legislation, following its designation as a national species under the Species Protection Regulations. This is because classifying the bee as such has more wide-ranging benefits, notably because ERA is responsible for raising public awareness on the bee. Thus, the bee can be used as a flagship species to promote wider conservation efforts,” they said.
“It also means that the beekeeping industry, currently regulated solely by the Bee Keeping Regulations, is more properly regulated through licences to keep Maltese honey bees. Currently, the only obligation is to inform the Director of Agriculture and Fisheries of the fact that they own a bee colony in order to register it.”