East African Mountain Honey Bee
Apis mellifera monticola
A highland-adapted honey bee subspecies found on East African mountains east of Lake Victoria, including Mount Kenya, the Aberdares, and Mount Elgon, typically above roughly 2,000-3,000 metres elevation. It is uniformly dark to black in colour, larger-bodied than the lowland Apis mellifera scutellata, and noticeably calmer to handle.
Species
Apis
Family
Apidae
Climate requirements
Adapted to the cooler, wetter montane forest zones of Kenya's highlands, tolerating low temperatures and high rainfall better than lowland populations. It is generally restricted to higher-altitude forest belts and does not dominate the warmer lowland savanna.
Husbandry guide
Kept in the same Kenya Top Bar or Langstroth hive designs used elsewhere in Kenya, but sited in or near indigenous montane forest and farmland offering forage such as forest trees, eucalyptus, and highland crop flowers, with hives often placed on stands or hung to reduce disturbance from cooler, damper ground conditions. Its calmer temperament and lower absconding tendency compared to lowland bees make it more forgiving for beginner beekeepers, though the shorter highland forage season can limit colony buildup. Harvests are typically timed around the long-rains flowering peak, with yields broadly comparable to or slightly below well-managed lowland hives in modern box hives.
Economic importance
Honey from highland apiaries around Mount Kenya, the Aberdares, and Mount Elgon is marketed as a distinct, often premium forest or "highland" honey, supporting cooperative-based livelihoods for smallholder farmers in these counties.