A honey bee (additionally spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect inside the genus Apis of the bee clade, all native to Eurasia. They are known for his or her production of perennial colonial nests from wax, the large length in their colonies, and surplus production and storage of honey, distinguishing their hives as a prized foraging goal of many animals, inclusive of honey badgers, bears and human hunter-gatherers. Only eight surviving species of honey bee are recognized, with a total of 43 subspecies, although traditionally 7 to 11 species are identified. Honey bees constitute only a small fraction of the roughly 20,000 known species of bees.
Honey bees
Temporal variety: Oligocene–Recent
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The Lone Pollinator.Jpg
Western honey bee at the bars of a horizontal pinnacle-bar hive
Scientific classificatione
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Arthropoda
Class:
Insecta
Order:
Hymenoptera
Family:
Apidae
Clade:
Corbiculata
Tribe:
Apini
Latreille, 1802
Genus:
Apis
Linnaeus, 1758
Type species
Apis mellifera[citation needed]
Linnaeus, 1758
Species
†Apis lithohermaea
†Apis nearctica
Subgenus Micrapis:
Apis andreniformis
Apis florea
Subgenus Megapis:
Apis dorsata
Apis laboriosa
Subgenus Apis:
Apis cerana
Apis koschevnikovi
Apis mellifera
Apis nigrocincta
The fine recognised honey bee is the western honey bee (Apis mellifera), which has been domesticated for honey manufacturing and crop pollination; the best other domesticated bee is the jap honey bee (Apis cerana), which happens in South Asia. Some different forms of related bees produce and store honey, and have been saved through human beings for that motive, such as the stingless bees, however most effective participants of the genus Apis are authentic honey bees. Modern human beings also cost the wax for use in making candles, cleaning soap, lip balms, and numerous cosmetics.
Etymology and name Edit
The genus call Apis is Latin for "bee".[1] Although current dictionaries may also seek advice from Apis as both honey bee or honeybee, entomologist Robert Snodgrass asserts that correct utilization calls for two phrases, i.E. Honey bee, as it is a type or kind of bee, whereas it is wrong to run the 2 words collectively, as in dragonfly or butterfly, due to the fact the latter aren't flies,[2] and haven't any reference to dragons or butter. Honey bee, now not honeybee, is the indexed commonplace call inside the Integrated Taxonomic Information System, the Entomological Society of America Common Names of Insects Database, and the Tree of Life Web Project.[3][4][5]
Origin, systematics, and distribution Edit
Distribution of honey bees around the arena
Morphology of a sterile girl employee honey bee
Honey bees seem to have their center of foundation in South and Southeast Asia (consisting of the Philippines), as all the extant species besides Apis mellifera are native to that place. Notably, living representatives of the earliest lineages to diverge (Apis florea and Apis andreniformis) have their center of foundation there.[6]
The first Apis bees appear within the fossil file at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary (34 mya), in European deposits. The origin of these prehistoric honey bees does now not necessarily imply Europe as the area of foundation of the genus, only that the bees have been present in Europe with the aid of that point. Few fossil deposits are recognised from South Asia, the suspected location of honey bee beginning, and less nevertheless have been thoroughly studied.
No Apis species existed inside the New World during human instances earlier than the advent of A. Mellifera through Europeans. Only one fossil species is documented from the New World, Apis nearctica, known from a unmarried 14 million-year-old specimen from Nevada.[7]
The close spouse and children of present day honey bees – e.G., bumblebees and stingless bees – are also social to some degree, and social behavior appears a plesiomorphic trait that predates the origin of the genus. Among the extant contributors of Apis, the more basal species make unmarried, exposed combs, at the same time as the more lately developed species nest in cavities and have more than one combs, which has substantially facilitated their domestication.
Species Edit
While about 20,000 species of bees exist,[8] simplest eight species of honey bee are identified, with a total of 43 subspecies, despite the fact that historically seven to 11 species are diagnosed:[9] Apis andreniformis (the black dwarf honey bee); Apis cerana (the jap honey bee); Apis dorsata (the large honey bee); Apis florea (the purple dwarf honey bee); Apis koschevnikovi (Koschevnikov's honey bee); Apis laboriosa (the Himalayan massive honey bee); Apis mellifera (the western honey bee); and Apis nigrocincta (the Philippine honey bee).[10]
Honey bees are the handiest extant contributors of the tribe Apini. Today's honey bees constitute 3 clades: Micrapis (the dwarf honey bees), Megapis (the massive honey bee), and Apis (the western honey bee and its near spouse and children).[9][11]
Most species have traditionally been cultured or as a minimum exploited for honey and beeswax via humans indigenous to their local levels. Only two species had been without a doubt domesticated: Apis mellifera and Apis cerana. A. Mellifera has been cultivated at least for the reason that time of the constructing of the Egyptian pyramids, and most effective that species has been moved notably past its native variety.[citation needed]
Micrapis Edit
Apis florea and Apis andreniformis are small honey bees of southern and southeastern Asia. They make very small, uncovered nests in timber and shrubs. Their stings are frequently incapable of penetrating human pores and skin, so the hive and swarms may be dealt with with minimal protection. They arise in large part sympatrically, even though they're very distinct evolutionarily and are in all likelihood the result of allopatric speciation, their distribution later converging.
Given that A. Florea is extra extensively distributed and A. Andreniformis is notably more competitive, honey is, if at all, normally harvested from the previous simplest. They are the most historical extant lineage of honey bees, perhaps diverging in the Bartonian (some 40 million years ago or barely later) from the opposite lineages, however do no longer appear to have diverged from every other a long time earlier than the Neogene.[11] Apis florea have smaller wing spans than its sister species.[12] Apis florea also are completely yellow except the scutellum of people, that is black.[12]
Megapis Edit
Two species are recognized within the subgenus Megapis. They typically build single or some exposed combs on excessive tree limbs, on cliffs, and every now and then on homes. They can be very fierce. Periodically robbed in their honey by using human "honey hunters", colonies are easily able to stinging a individual to dying if provoked.
Apis dorsata, the large honey bee, is native and huge across maximum of South and Southeast Asia.
A. D. Binghami, the Indonesian giant honey bee, is classed as the Indonesian subspecies of the massive honey bee or a distinct species; within the latter case, A. D. Breviligula and / or different lineages would likely also ought to be considered species.[13]
Apis laboriosa, the Himalayan massive honey bee, became to start with defined as a awesome species. Later, it was included in A. Dorsata as a subspecies[9] based on the organic species concept, though authors applying a genetic species concept have suggested it need to be considered a separate species[11] and greater latest studies has confirmed this class.[14] Essentially limited to the Himalayas, it differs little from the large honey bee in look, but has vast behavioral adaptations that permit it to nest in the open at high altitudes notwithstanding low ambient temperatures. It is the largest dwelling honey bee.
Apis Edit
Western honey bee on a honeycomb
Eastern Apis species include three or four species, along with A. Koschevnikovi, Apis nigrocincta, and A. Cerana. The genetics of the western honey bee (A. Mellifera) are uncertain.
Koschevnikov's honey bee Edit
Koschevnikov's honey bee (Apis koschevnikovi) is regularly referred to in the literature because the "purple bee of Sabah"; but, A. Koschevnikovi is faded reddish in Sabah State, Borneo, Malaysia, but a darkish, coppery colour within the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, Indonesia.[15] Its habitat is restrained to the tropical evergreen forests of the Malay Peninsula, Borneo and Sumatra and they do not live in tropical evergreen rain forests which extend into Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam.[15]
Philippine honey bee Edit
Apis nigrocincta is a hollow space-nesting species. The species has rust-coloured scapes, legs, and clypeuses, with reddish-tan hair color that covers most of the frame.[16]
Eastern honey bee Edit
Apis cerana, the japanese honey bee proper, is the conventional honey bee of southern and japanese Asia. One of its subspecies, the Indian honey bee (A. C. Indica), became domesticated and saved in hives in a fashion much like A. Mellifera, although on a greater restricted, regional scale.
It has no longer been feasible but to solve its dating to the Bornean honey bee A. C. Nuluensis and Apis nigrocincta from the Philippines to pleasure; some researchers argue that those are certainly distinct species, but that A. Cerana as defined continues to be paraphyletic, which includes several separate species,[11] though different researchers argue cerana is a unmarried monophyletic species.[17]
Western honey bee Edit
Main article: Apis mellifera
The European honey bee may additionally have originated from japanese Africa. This bee is pictured in Tanzania.
A. Mellifera, the maximum common domesticated[18] species, turned into the 0.33 insect whose genome become mapped. It appears to have originated in eastern tropical Africa and unfold from there to Europe and eastwards into Asia to the Tian Shan range. It is variously called the European, western, or common honey bee in specific components of the arena. Many subspecies have adapted to the nearby geographic and climatic environments; in addition, breeds together with the Buckfast bee were bred. Behavior, coloration, and anatomy may be quite exclusive from one subspecies or maybe strain to any other.[19]
A. Mellifera phylogeny is the maximum enigmatic of all honey bee species. It appears to have diverged from its eastern relatives handiest throughout the Late Miocene. This could in shape the hypothesis that the ancestral stock of cave-nesting honey bees become separated into the western group of East Africa and the jap group of tropical Asia by using desertification within the Middle East and adjacent regions, which precipitated declines of meals flora and trees that furnished nest websites, eventually causing gene drift to end.[19]
The variety of A. Mellifera subspecies is probably the fabricated from a in large part Early Pleistocene radiation aided by means of weather and habitat changes over the past ice age. That the western honey bee has been intensively managed by way of people for lots millennia – which includes hybridization and introductions – has apparently extended the velocity of its evolution and confounded the DNA series facts to a degree wherein little of substance can be said approximately the exact relationships of many A. Mellifera subspecies.[11]
Apis mellifera isn't always local to the Americas, so it was now not present while the European explorers and colonists arrived. However, other native bee species were stored and traded by using indigenous peoples.[20] In 1622, European colonists introduced the German honey bee (A. M. Mellifera) to the Americas first, accompanied later through the Italian honey bee (A. M. Ligustica) and others. Many of the crops that depend upon western honey bees for pollination have additionally been imported in view that colonial instances. Escaped swarms (called "wild" honey bees, but genuinely feral) spread swiftly as some distance because the Great Plains, commonly previous the colonists. Honey bees did now not naturally pass the Rocky Mountains; they had been transported by the Mormon pioneers to Utah within the overdue 1840s, and by using ship to California inside the early 1850s.[21]
An Africanized honey bee (left) and a European honey bee on a honeycomb
Africanized honey bee Edit
Main article: Africanized bee
Africanized honey bees (regarded colloquially as "killer bees") are hybrids among European stock and the East African lowland subspecies A. M. Scutellata; they are regularly extra competitive than European honey bees and do now not create as a whole lot of a honey surplus, but are greater proof against disorder and are better foragers.[22] Accidentally launched from quarantine in Brazil, they've unfold to North America and represent a pest in some regions. However, those lines do now not overwinter properly, so they're now not regularly determined inside the less warm, extra northern parts of North America. The authentic breeding test for which the East African lowland honey bees have been brought to Brazil within the first vicinity has persevered (though now not as at the start meant). Novel hybrid lines of home and re-domesticated Africanized honey bees combine excessive resilience to tropical conditions and precise yields. They are famous among beekeepers in Brazil.[citation needed]
Living and fossil honey bees (Apini: Apis) Edit
Tribe Apini Latreille[23]
Genus Apis Linnaeus (sensu lato)
henshawi species group (†Priorapis Engel, †Synapis Cockerell)
†A. Vetusta Engel
†A. Henshawi Cockerell
†A. Petrefacta (Říha)
†A. Miocenica Hong
†A. "longtibia" Zhang
†A. "Miocene 1"
armbrusteri species institution (†Cascapis Engel)
†A. Armbrusteri Zeuner
†A. Nearctica, species novus
florea species institution (Micrapis Ashmead)
A. Florea Fabricius
A. Andreniformis Smith
dorsata species organization (Megapis Ashmead)
†A. Lithohermaea Engel
A. Dorsata Fabricius
A. Laboriosa Smith
mellifera species organization (Apis Linnaeus sensu stricto)
mellifera subgroup
A. Mellifera Linnaeus (Apis Linnaeus sensu strictissimo)
cerana subgroup (Sigmatapis Maa)
A. Cerana Fabricius
A. Nigrocincta Smith
A. Koschevnikovi Enderlein
Life cycle Edit
As in some different sorts of eusocial bees, a colony generally incorporates one queen bee, a lady; seasonally up to three thousand drone bees, or men;[24] and tens of hundreds of girl worker bees. Details range a few of the extraordinary species of honey bees, however common functions consist of:
Eggs are laid singly in a cell in a wax honeycomb, produced and shaped through the worker bees. Using her spermatheca, the queen can pick to fertilize the egg she is laying, normally depending on which cell she is laying it into. Drones develop from unfertilised eggs and are haploid, while ladies (queens and employee bees) increase from fertilised eggs and are diploid. Larvae are to begin with fed with royal jelly produced with the aid of worker bees, later switching to honey and pollen. The exception is a larva fed totally on royal jelly, which will become a queen bee. The larva undergoes several moultings earlier than spinning a cocoon in the cell, and pupating.
Young worker bees, every now and then called "nurse bees", clean the hive and feed the larvae. When their royal jelly-generating glands begin to atrophy, they start constructing comb cells. They progress to other within-colony obligations as they emerge as older, including receiving nectar and pollen from foragers, and guarding the hive. Later nonetheless, a worker takes her first orientation flights and finally leaves the hive and commonly spends the the rest of her lifestyles as a forager.
Worker bees cooperate to find food and use a pattern of "dancing" (called the bee dance or waggle dance) to communicate statistics concerning resources with each other; this dance varies from species to species, but all dwelling species of Apis exhibit some shape of the conduct. If the assets are very near the hive, they will additionally exhibit a much less specific dance typically known as the "round dance".
Honey bees additionally carry out tremble dances, which recruit receiver bees to acquire nectar from returning foragers.
Virgin queens cross on mating flights faraway from their home colony to a drone congregation place, and mate with more than one drones before returning. The drones die within the act of mating. Queen honey bees do not mate with drones from their home colony.
Colonies are mounted no longer by way of solitary queens, as in maximum bees, but by means of companies known as "swarms", which consist of a mated queen and a massive contingent of employee bees. This institution moves en masse to a nest website which changed into scouted with the aid of worker bees ahead and whose area is communicated with a unique sort of dance. Once the swarm arrives, they without delay assemble a new wax comb and begin to elevate new worker brood. This kind of nest founding isn't always seen in another residing bee genus, although numerous companies of vespid wasps additionally found new nests through swarming (on occasion such as a couple of queens). Also, stingless bees will start new nests with large numbers of worker bees, however the nest is constructed earlier than a queen is escorted to the web site, and this employee force isn't always a true "swarm".
Gallery Edit
Honey bee eggs proven in opened wax cells
Eggs and larvae
Drone pupae
Emergence of a European dark honey bee (A. M. Mellifera)
Winter survival Edit
In cold climates, honey bees forestall flying while the temperature drops beneath about 10 °C (50 °F) and crowd into the relevant vicinity of the hive to shape a "wintry weather cluster". The employee bees huddle around the queen bee on the center of the cluster, shivering to preserve the middle between 27 °C (eighty one °F) on the begin of iciness (in the course of the broodless duration) and 34 °C (ninety three °F) once the queen resumes laying. The worker bees rotate thru the cluster from the out of doors to the inside in order that no bee gets too cold. The out of doors edges of the cluster live at approximately eight–nine °C (forty six–forty eight °F). The colder the climate is outside, the more compact the cluster turns into. During winter, they devour their saved honey to provide frame warmness. The quantity of honey fed on throughout the iciness is a characteristic of wintry weather length and severity, but degrees in temperate climates from 15 to 50 kilograms (33 to one hundred ten lb).[25] In addition, positive bees, such as the western honey bee in addition to Apis cerana, are recognized to engage in powerful methods of nest thermoregulation all through intervals of varying temperature in each summer and winter. During the summer time, but, this is done through fanning and water evaporation from water gathered in various fields..
