European dark bee

The European dark bee, scientific name Apis mellifera mellifera, is a subspecies of the western honey bee that evolved in central Asia, with a proposed origin in the Tien Shan Mountains, later migrating into eastern and then northern Europe after the last ice age beginning around 9000 BC. Its original range included the southern Urals in Russia and stretched through northern Europe to the Pyrenees, and it is one of two members of the M lineage of Apis mellifera, the other being found in western China. It was traditionally called the Black German Bee, though it is now considered endangered in Germany, and is more often named today for the region where it lives, such as the British black bee, the Native Irish honey bee, the Cornish black bee, or the Nordic brown bee, even though these are all the same subspecies. It was domesticated in Europe, and hives were carried to North America during the colonial era in 1622, where Native Americans referred to it as the English Fly.