The bees’ cubital index, a method for differentiating breeds of honeybees, also confirmed they are “more of an indigenous bee” than anything else, he said, but their adaptations have made them unique and peculiar, and they have very little banding. “Supposedly, wild tree-nesting honeybees which can sustain themselves do not exist, so nobody knows what type of wild, self-sustaining honeybee is actually left in the UK.”Apparently meaning here the taxon or a taxa have not yet been fitted into a phylogenetic tree.
2021 November 7, Donna Ferguson, “‘No one knew they existed’: wild heirs of lost British honeybee found at Blenheim”, in The Guardian Online