European honey bee
| Western honey bee | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Family: | Apidae |
| Genus: | Apis |
| Species: | A. mellifera |
| Binomial name | |
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Apis mellifera Linnaeus, 1758 |
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| Subspecies | |
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Northern Europe Southern Europe
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| Synonyms | |
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Apis mellifica Linnaeus, 1761 |
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| External identifiers for Apis mellifera | |
|---|---|
| Encyclopedia of Life | 1045608 |
| ITIS | 154396 |
| NCBI | 7460 |
| Also found in: | |
Northern Europe
Southern Europe
Apis mellifica Linnaeus, 1761
The western honey bee or European honey bee (Apis mellifera) is the most common of the 7-12 species of honey bee worldwide. The genus name Apis is Latin for "bee", and mellifera means "honey-bearing", referring to the species' tendency to produce a large quantity of honey for storage over the winter.
Like all honey bees, the western honey bee is eusocial, creating colonies with a single fertile female (or "queen"), many sterile females or "workers", and small proportion of fertile males or "drones". Individual colonies can house tens of thousands of bees. Colony activities are organized by complex communication between individuals, through both odors and the dance language.
The western honey bee was one of the first domesticated insects, and is the primary species maintained by beekeepers to this day for both its honey and pollination services. With human assistance, the western honey bee now occupies every continent except Antarctica. Due to its wide cultivation, this species is the single most important pollinator for agriculture globally. A number of pests and diseases threaten the honey bee, especially colony collapse disorder.
Western honey bees are an important model organism in scientific studies, particularly in the fields of social evolution, learning and memory; they are also used in studies of pesticide toxicity, to assess non-target impacts of commercial pesticides.
The Western Honey Bee can be found on every continent except Antartica. The species is believed to have originated in either Africa, or Asia, from which it spread throughout Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Humans are responsible for its considerable additional range, introducing European subspecies into North America (early 1600s) South America, Australia, New Zealand, and eastern Asia.
Western honey bees adapted to the local environments as they spread geographically. These adaptations include synchronizing colony cycles to the timing of local flower resources, forming a winter cluster in colder climates, migratory swarming in Africa, and enhanced foraging behavior in desert areas. All together, these variations resulted in 28 recognized subspecies, all of which are cross-fertile. The subspecies are divided into four major branches, based on work by Ruttner and confirmed by analysis. African subspecies belong to branch A, northwestern European subspecies branch M, southwestern European subspecies branch C and Middle-Eastern subspecies branch O.
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Wikipedia