Laesøe Bees - last survivors of a pure Northern species
Ulf Groehn, Hjalmar Peterson

In the middle of the Kattegatt (a stretch of water between Sweden and the Danish peninsula Jutland) there is a small island called Laesoe (in Danish, Laes). A few years ago I received a report about the bees on this island. It appeared as if we had on Laesoe the last survivors of the Northern bees, or perhaps we should say, the Northern brown bees, for Laesoe is a Danish island.

Ever since I have realised what planned cross-breeding can achieve, I have also recognised the immense value of pure species. We can choose pure breeding, we can select and also cross-breed without restrictions as long as we feel the responsibility not to disturb and banish species from their original geographical environment. They can be our salvation if, through lack of knowledge during breeding we have ruined the material with which we have been working.

So it seemed very interesting to visit the Laesoe bees in their (natural) environment and indeed before any other bee species were brought on to the island. Unfortunately, however, this might already have taken place.

Laesoe is an island of approx. 25 x 10 km and the number of bee colonies is so large that the island possibly functioned as a natural genetic bank. For this reason, an extension of genes from other species would be a double disaster. What could have taken place by natural methods must now be safeguarded, in that we create one race by mating and fertilisation of the native bees. At the same time, we will not be able to avoid new forms of the selection. In this way we may perhaps achieve a species which should not justly be considered as original.

For many years, Sven Olsson of the Agricultural College in Uppsala looked after the bees. During the whole of his time there he kept a building housing northern bees. He knows this species of bees perhaps better than anyone else in Sweden. He is now retired but he was prepared to come to Laesoe with his successor, Bernd Nystrom. Also joining us on this small expedition was a man who bred northern bees on a small island off the west coast of Sweden: Hjalmar Pettersson Stoklund.

The island of Laesoe offered us a fantastic experience. We were received in the most hospitable manner by the Chairman of the local Beekeepers Association, Carl-Johan Junge. He gave us every assistance in the examination of bees in various beehives. We were allowed to see everything we wished in their hives. The breeders of queens. Hans Roy and Carlsten Wolff-Hansen, advisers in the Danish Beekeepers Association also came with us. We were, therefore, quite a large group looking around bee colonies and my readers should therefore know that there were many witnesses for the report which I am now to make.

The Laesoe bees are uniformly dark; we found in only a few colonies a small number of bees with any kind of yellow colouring (apparently this was the beginning of species interbreeding). The queens are large, black, and with a warm brown on the stomach and legs; the worker bees are rather small; the drones are large, broad, black fellows. The bees are thoroughly good-natured.

One evening, (until about 22.00) and for a whole day, we examined colonies in various hives, and no one had the feeling that a veil was needed. I myself received a sting from a colony at the school beehive. The colony had no queen and we opened it up rather carelessly. After we had smoked them a little and quietened them down for a few minutes, we were able to examine this colony also individually. There were no further accidents. The bees flew around more like good Italian or Buckfast types; but there seemed little inclination to leave the combs. Certainly, they went down when a basket was held high, but not in the quantity expected from Swedish bees. Some bees did leave the basket when this was lifted and they flew out, but not in order to attack.

I have heard many old beekeepers, remembering our old bees in Sweden before they were crossed with Carniolian or Dutch bees, relate how quite good-natured these old bees were. I begin to believe them now I have seen the Laesoe bees.

Of course, it was not our only task simply to observe the Laesoe bees. We had also planned to take breeding material with us to Sweden and to breed a species of these bees there.

We dare not take bees from Denmark to Sweden (we do not have 'Varroa' yet on the Swedish mainland) We planned, therefore, to take eggs in sections of comb and sperm from the drones. I can say that we did both,but not as successfully as we had wished. A small number of Laesoe queens have wintered from this autumn in Sweden. Some paired up on an island with black Swedish drones, some were fertilised with sperm from the Laesoe colonies and some with sperm from the best black colonies of the Agricultural College. The total number was about 20. This does not seem very impressive. however, in order to get the correct perspective I should mention the following: When I first imported eggs in 1975 from Buckfast, we were successful in getting about 15 daughters from one female parent Buckfast, No 427. These had to be mated in a proper breeding farm. Today, however, there are in Sweden many thousands of colonies with No.427 in their ancestry. It is also important to consider: What we now have as L. bees in Sweden, do not come from a single queen but from various colonies in various beehives. This enables a rapid extension of the material, without too much in-breeding.

The bees are certainly worthwhile preserving. They have attracted the attention of breeders in various places. Bee studies have shown that these are perhaps the last pure species of the Apis mellifera mellifera. It is our duty to help those who wish to preserve the Laesoe species, preferably on Laesoe. If this proves to be impossible, then an effort must be made to preserve the Laesoe bee species using mating stations and by artificial insemination in as many places as possible. Unfortunately, uncontrolled importation of other species to Laesoe has already commenced.

When I mentioned the special characteristics of the Laesoe bees, I only reported what can be seen from an examination of the colonies. But I must add something else. Losses during the winter are almost unknown. Nosema illness does not exist. Loss during winter is low, very low. They build fantastic combs. But they swarm a little.

Ulf Groehn,
Hjalmar Pettersson.
Loderup, Sweden.