After several years of hybrid bees — mostly Italian/Carniolan and who knows what, in 2025, we’re trying pure-bred Carniolan bees in one location and pure-bred Caucasian bees in another.

The Carniolan honey bee is native to Slovenia, southern Austria, and parts of Albania, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, parts of Serbia, Hungary, parts of Romania and North-East Italy. They are known for making it through the winter in good shape and building up quickly in the spring–leading to exceptional honey production. They are generally easy to work, though they can be a bit more defensive than Italian bees in my experience.

The Caucasian honeybee originates from the high valleys of the Central Caucasus although the bees also can be found in eastern Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The Caucasian honeybee  fly earlier in the day and later in the day and in cooler conditions. They are said to be excellent nectar producers and quite gentle–more so than the Carniolans. However, they can be a bit slow to reach full strength in the spring, so they may not be as good a producing honey here in Essex County where most of the nectar flow is in spring and early summer though with a second short season in the fall with goldenrod and Japanese knotweed.