The Caucasian honey bee (Apis mellifera caucasica), native to the Caucasus and northeastern Turkey, has the longest tongue of any honey bee race in the world. Its tongue length ranges from 6.6 to 7.25 mm, letting it gather nectar from deep-throated flowers other races can't reach. It's dark-coloured, cold-hardy, and markedly calm-tempered.
Honey has been produced with this bee in the highlands of Artvin, Ardahan and Kars for centuries. Its adaptation to the Kaçkar Mountains' short, rainy summers, steep slopes and multi-floral meadows is no coincidence — the race formed in this geography. Below you'll find the Caucasian bee's physical traits, its strengths and weaknesses relative to other races, how it shapes the honey it produces, and where the pure race is preserved.
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Physical Traits of the Caucasian Bee
The Caucasian bee is larger than other bee races; newly emerged worker bees weigh around 70–80 mg. The bee is dark-coloured with two brown bands. Caucasian bees living in mountain regions have entirely black abdominal segments. Grey hair is quite common on their bodies, while the drones are black.
This dark appearance is a practically useful identifying mark: if you've seen a bee with yellow-orange bands, it's most likely an Italian bee or a hybrid. Colour alone isn't sufficient, though — confirming a pure race requires morphometric measurement or genetic analysis.
Why Is the Caucasian Bee the Longest-Tongued Race?
A bee's "tongue" (proboscis) is the organ it uses to draw nectar up from deep inside a flower. The deeper the tube formed by a flower's petals, the longer a tongue is needed to reach the nectar. The Caucasian bee's tongue, approaching 7 mm, makes deep-corolla plants such as clover and mountain-meadow flowers accessible to it where other races can't reach them.
Bars start at 6.0 mm and extend to each race's longest measurement; values vary by ecotype within a race. What matters isn't the millimetre figure alone, but how well the race is matched to its local flora.
Tongue length isn't the only measure; here's where four races each stand out:
- Caucasian (A. m. caucasica) — draws nectar from deep flowers, cold-hardy, calm.
- Carniolan (A. m. carnica) — fast spring buildup, high swarming tendency.
- Italian (A. m. ligustica) — strong colony, long season; less cold-hardy.
- Anatolian (A. m. anatoliaca) — adapted to drought and heat, economical overwintering.
This single trait largely explains why this race is used in the Artvin region. Among the flower diversity of the Kaçkar highlands, deep-corolla species make up a large share; a short-tongued race reaches fewer nectar sources in the same meadow. Finding the right flower, though, starts with sight rather than tongue: because a bee's compound eyes see ultraviolet, it reads the nectar guides on petals directly. This is part of where Artvin honey's layered aroma comes from.
Traits of the Caucasian Queen Bee
The Caucasian queen is calm. This calmness holds for pure-race and F1 queens; you may not see the same calm temperament in hybridised bees. She has a long tongue and is resistant to cold climates.
Being adapted to cold, she wakes late and develops late in the season, reaching a strong colony as the season progresses. She's resistant to some bee diseases and has a marked tendency to collect large amounts of propolis.
Calmness isn't a matter of the beekeeper's comfort — it's directly a matter of work quality: a colony that doesn't panic when the hive is opened needs less smoke, inspections take less time, and the bees experience less stress. Working on a steep slope in highland conditions, this makes a real practical difference.
Advantages and Disadvantages of the Caucasian Bee
No bee race is superior in every condition; the choice of race depends on geography and the beekeeper's way of working. The Caucasian bee's two sides:
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Longest tongue: gathers nectar from deep flowers, giving a yield advantage in multi-floral highlands. | Develops late: grows slowly in spring, can miss the first nectar flow in early-flowering regions. |
| Resistant to cold and cool, rainy weather; flies on days other races won't work. | Collects excessive propolis: frames and covers stick together, making hive inspection harder. |
| Calm and steady temperament; easy hive inspection, low aggression. | High tendency toward robbing; weak colonies need protecting. |
| Low swarming tendency; carries colony strength through to the harvest season. | Hard to keep pure: hybridisation quickly erodes the calmness and tongue-length advantage. |
A note from the producer
The propolis issue is one line in a book, but a whole day in the field. During August inspections we carry a utility knife just to pry the frames apart; the covers are practically glued shut with resin. Even so, we've never considered switching races: propolis is a natural sealing layer that protects the hive from disease, and the same bee is out gathering nectar in the highlands on a day the lowland next door can't fly at all.
How Does the Caucasian Bee Shape the Honey It Produces?
The bee race doesn't directly change honey's chemical composition — the plant the nectar comes from is what determines the honey. But the race determines which plants nectar can be gathered from, and the honey's character is shaped by that.
Thanks to its long tongue, a colony reaches more plant species in the same meadow than a short-tongued race would. The result is a multi-source, layered aroma rather than a taste dominated by a single plant — this is why highland honeys are recognised the way they are. Being able to work in cool weather also widens the harvest window: not being able to fly for a week during the Black Sea region's rainy July can cut that season's yield in half.
You see this effect most clearly in flower (highland) honey; in chestnut honey, which relies on a single flora, it's the chestnut forest itself, more than the race, that's the deciding factor. We cover how honey varies by type in our article on honey's benefits.
Macahel: The Gene Centre of the Pure Caucasian Bee
The Caucasian bee's biggest problem is hybridisation: colonies that mix with other races lose both their calm temperament and their tongue-length advantage. That's why the isolated regions where the pure race is preserved matter so much.
In Turkey, the best-known such place is the Camili (Macahel) valley in Artvin's Borçka district. This closed valley on the Georgian border, thanks to its geographic isolation, allowed the race to stay pure, and in 2005 it was declared a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO — the first region in Turkey to receive that status. Today the region is one of the centres for pure Caucasian bee gene conservation and breeding-queen production.
Our own hives are in the villages and highlands of Ardanuç — same bee race, different valley. We go into the region's place in beekeeping in more detail in our article on what is Artvin honey.
Where Can You Buy Artvin Honey?
You can buy Artvin honey straight from the beekeeper, with no wholesaler in between. Browse the honey we take from our own hives and from the beekeepers we work with, in Artvin's villages and highlands at elevations of 1,200 metres and above, produced by the Caucasian honey bee, on our product pages; you can message us directly on WhatsApp about harvest timing, jar sizes and shipping.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many mm is the Caucasian bee's tongue?
The Caucasian bee's tongue (proboscis) length ranges from 6.6 to 7.25 mm, the longest figure among honey bee races. The Carniolan bee runs 6.4-6.8 mm, and the Italian and Anatolian bees around 6.3-6.6 mm. The difference may look small, but because it determines access to deep-corolla flowers, its effect on yield is large.
Is the Caucasian bee aggressive?
No, the pure Caucasian bee is one of the calmest honey bee races; it stays steady during hive inspection and needs little smoke. But this calmness holds for the pure race and F1 queens. In hybridised colonies, temperament can turn noticeably harder.
Why does the Caucasian bee collect so much propolis?
Because in a cool, rainy mountain climate it needs a lot of resin to insulate the hive and seal cracks. Propolis protects the hive against moisture and microorganisms. The downside for the beekeeper is that frames and covers stick together, making inspection harder.
What's the difference between the Caucasian bee and the Anatolian bee?
The clearest differences are tongue length and climate adaptation. The Caucasian bee has a longer tongue (6.6-7.25 mm) and is adapted to a cool, rainy mountain climate; the Anatolian bee adapts better to dry, hot conditions and overwinters more economically. The Caucasian bee is calmer, while the Anatolian bee develops faster in spring.
In which regions is the Caucasian bee kept?
Its native range is the Caucasus and northeastern Turkey: the Artvin, Ardahan and Kars area. The best-known place where the pure race is preserved is the Camili (Macahel) valley in Artvin's Borçka district; this isolated valley, declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2005, is one of the centres for gene conservation and breeding-queen production.
Despite developing late, why is the Caucasian bee still preferred?
Because in highland beekeeping the main nectar flow doesn't start until July. An early-developing race's spring advantage doesn't pay off at 1,200 metres and above, where flowering starts 4-6 weeks late. The Caucasian bee reaches its strongest colony exactly within this late, short window; being able to fly in cool weather also lets it make efficient use of the short harvest period.
Sources
- Ruttner, F. — Biogeography and Taxonomy of Honeybees (race morphometrics and tongue-length measurements)
- Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry — Caucasian bee race (Apis mellifera caucasica) gene conservation and breeding-queen production work
- UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme — Camili Biosphere Reserve (2005) record