Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Apis mel­lif­era is na­tive to Eu­rope, west­ern Asia, and Africa. Human in­tro­duc­tion of Apis mel­lif­era to other con­ti­nents started in the 17th cen­tury, and now they are found all around the world, in­clud­ing east Asia, Aus­tralia and North and South Amer­ica. (Sam­mataro and Avitabile, 1998; Win­ston, et al., 1981)

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • introduced
• palearctic
  • native
• oriental
  • introduced
• ethiopian
  • native
• neotropical
  • introduced
• australian
  • introduced

• Other Geographic Terms
• cosmopolitan

Habi­tat

Eu­ro­pean hon­ey­bees pre­fer habi­tats that have an abun­dant sup­ply of suit­able flow­er­ing plants, such as mead­ows, open wooded areas, and gar­dens. They can sur­vive in grass­lands, deserts, and wet­lands if there is suf­fi­cient water, food, and shel­ter. They need cav­i­ties (e.g. in hol­low trees) to nest in. (Milne and Milne, 2000; Win­ston, et al., 1981)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate
• tropical
• terrestrial

• Terrestrial Biomes
• desert or dune
• savanna or grassland
• chaparral
• forest

• Wetlands
• swamp

• Other Habitat Features
• urban
• suburban
• agricultural

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Gen­er­ally, Apis mel­lif­era are red/brown with black bands and or­ange yel­low rings on ab­domen. They have hair on tho­rax and less hair on ab­domen. They also have a pollen bas­ket on their hind legs. Hon­ey­bee legs are mostly dark brown/black.

There are two castes of fe­males, ster­ile work­ers are smaller (adults 10-15 mm long), fer­tile queens are larger (18-20 mm). Males, called drones, are 15-17 mm long at ma­tu­rity. Though smaller, work­ers have longer wings than drones. Both castes of fe­males have a stinger that is formed from mod­i­fied ovipos­i­tor struc­tures. In work­ers, the sting is barbed, and tears away from the body when used. In both castes, the stinger is sup­plied with venom from glands in the ab­domen. Males have much larger eyes than fe­males, prob­a­bly to help lo­cate fly­ing queens dur­ing mat­ing flights.

There are cur­rently 26 rec­og­nized sub­species of Apis mel­lif­era, with dif­fer­ences based on dif­fer­ences in mor­phol­ogy and mol­e­c­u­lar char­ac­ter­is­tics. The dif­fer­ences among the sub­species is usu­ally dis­cussed in terms of their agri­cul­tural out­put in par­tic­u­lar en­vi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions. Some sub­species have the abil­ity to tol­er­ate warmer or colder cli­mates. Sub­species may also vary in their de­fen­sive be­hav­ior, tongue length, wingspan, and col­oration. Ab­dom­i­nal band­ing pat­terns also dif­fer - some darker and some with more of a mix be­tween darker and lighter band­ing pat­terns.

Hon­ey­bees are par­tially en­dother­mic -- they can warm their bod­ies and the tem­per­a­ture in their hive by work­ing their flight mus­cles. (Clarke, et al., 2002; Milne and Milne, 2000; Pinto, et al., 2004; See­ley, et al., 1982)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• ectothermic
• heterothermic
• bilateral symmetry
• venomous

• Sexual Dimorphism
• female larger
• sexes shaped differently

• Range length

  10 to 20 mm

  0.39 to 0.79 in

De­vel­op­ment

Hon­ey­bees build a hive out of wax se­cre­tions from their bod­ies, and queens lay their eggs in cells in the wax. The speed of sub­se­quent de­vel­op­ment of the young is strongly af­fected by tem­per­a­ture, and is fastest at 33-36°C.

Hon­ey­bees are holometabolous in­sects, and have four stages in the life cycle: egg, larva, pupa, and adult.

A. mel­lif­era eggs hatch in 28-144 hours, de­pend­ing on their tem­per­a­ture. The larva that emerges is a small white grub. It stays in its wax cell, grow­ing, and is fed and groomed by adult work­ers. The food that a fe­male larva re­ceives de­ter­mines whether it will be a queen or worker. At 34°C, lar­vae feed and grow for 4-5 days, queens for 6 days, and males for 6-7 days. At the end of that pe­riod their cell is sealed by adult work­ers, and the larva molts, spins a silk co­coon, and trans­forms into the pupa stage. Pupae un­dergo a mas­sive meta­mor­pho­sis that takes about 7-8 days for queens, 12 days for work­ers, and 14-15 days for males. Once their final meta­mor­pho­sis is com­plete, they chew their way out of the cell and begin their adult life. They will not grow or molt after emerg­ing. Adult work­ers will live for 2-4 weeks in the sum­mer, or as long as 11 months if they live through the win­ter. Males only sur­vive for 4-8 weeks, and do not live through the win­ter. Queens live 2-5 years.

. The next stage is the lar­val stage where the larva is fed the royal jelly, pollen/nec­tar, and honey com­bi­na­tion. Next the larva goes into the pupae stage where it caps it­self into its cell to meta­mor­phose into the ma­ture stage.

Queens nor­mally take 16 days to reach ma­tu­rity, the worker bees take 21 days, and the drone takes 24 days to ma­ture. (Ad­jare, 1990; Sam­mataro and Avitabile, 1998)

• Development - Life Cycle
• metamorphosis

Re­pro­duc­tion

The great ma­jor­ity of fe­male A. mel­lif­era in a hive are ster­ile work­ers. Only queens mate and lay eggs. Nor­mally there is only a sin­gle re­pro­duc­tive queen in a hive.

Dur­ing pe­ri­ods of suit­ably mild weather in spring and sum­mer, males leave the hive and gather at "drone as­sem­bly areas" near the hive. Vir­gin queens will fly through these areas, at­tract­ing the males with pheromones. The males pur­sue, and at­tempt to mate with the queen in flight. Some­times a "comet" forms, as a clus­ter of males forms around the fe­male, with a string of other males try­ing to catch up. Each male who suc­ceeds in mat­ing drops away, and dies within a few hours or days. Males who do not mate will con­tinue to loi­ter in the as­sem­bly areas until they mate or die try­ing. Queens will mate with up to 10 males in a sin­gle flight.

Queens may mate with males from their own hive, or from other hives in the area. The queen's mat­ing be­hav­ior is cen­tered around find­ing the best place to mate be­fore­hand, by tak­ing di­rec­tional flights for a pe­riod of time, last­ing no more than a cou­ple of days. Af­ter­ward, she leaves the hive and flies to mate with drones in an as­sem­bly area. This nor­mally starts to occur after their first week of birth. The queen does this up to four times. After this con­gre­gate of mat­ing has oc­curred, she never mates again in her life­time. (Ad­jare, 1990; Sam­mataro and Avitabile, 1998; Tarpy and Page Jr., 2000)

• Mating System
• polyandrous
• eusocial

Apis mel­lif­era queens are the pri­mary re­pro­duc­ers of the nest and all of the ac­tiv­i­ties of the colony are cen­tered around their re­pro­duc­tive be­hav­iors and their sur­vival. The queen is the only fer­tile fe­male in the colony. She lays eggs nearly con­tin­u­ously through­out the year, some­times paus­ing in late fall in cold cli­mates. A par­tic­u­larly fer­tile queen may lay as many as 1,000 eggs/day, and 200,000 eggs in her life­time. It takes a queen about 16 days to reach adult­hood, and an­other week or more to begin lay­ing eggs. Males take about 24 days to emerge as adults, and begin leav­ing the nest for as­sem­bly areas a few days after that.

Queen hon­ey­bees can con­trol whether or not an egg they lay is fer­til­ized. Un­fer­til­ized eggs de­velop as males and are hap­loid (have only one set of chro­mo­somes). Fer­til­ized eggs are diploid (two sets of chro­mo­somes) and de­velop as work­ers or new queens, de­pend­ing on how they are fed as lar­vae. Queens may in­crease the ratio of male to fe­male eggs they lay if they are dis­eased or in­jured, or in re­sponse to prob­lems in the colony.

Healthy, well-fed hon­ey­bee colonies re­pro­duce by "swarm­ing." The work­ers in the colony begin by pro­duc­ing nu­mer­ous queen lar­vae. Shortly be­fore the new queens emerge, the res­i­dent, egg-lay­ing queen leaves the hive, tak­ing up to half the work­ers with her. This "swarm" forms a tem­po­rary group in a tree nearby, while work­ers scout for a suit­able lo­ca­tion for a new hive. Once they find one, the swarm moves into the space, and be­gins build­ing comb and start­ing the process of food col­lec­tion and re­pro­duc­tion again.

Mean­while at the old hive, the new queens emerge from their cells. If the pop­u­la­tion of work­ers is large enough, and there are few queens emerg­ing, then the first one or two may leave with "af­ter­swarms" of work­ers. After the swarm­ing is com­pleted, any re­main­ing new queens try to sting and kill each other, con­tin­u­ing to fight until all but one is dead. After her com­pe­ti­tion is re­moved, the sur­viv­ing queen be­gins to lay eggs.

Nor­mally the pheromones se­creted by a healthy queen pre­vent work­ers from re­pro­duc­ing, but if a colony re­mains queen­less for long, some work­ers will begin lay­ing eggs. These eggs are un­fer­til­ized, and so de­velop as males. (Ad­jare, 1990; Milne and Milne, 2000; Sam­mataro and Avitabile, 1998; Tarpy and Page Jr., 2000)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• induced ovulation
• fertilization
  • internal
• oviparous
• sperm-storing

• Breeding interval

  Colonies typically swarm once or twice a year, usually at the beginning of the season that provides the most nectar.

• Breeding season

  Late spring until the winter months

• Range eggs per season

  60,000 to 80,000

• Average gestation period

  3 days

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  15 to 17 days

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  24 days

As in most eu­so­cial in­sects, the off­spring of fer­tile fe­males (queens) are cared for other mem­bers of the colony. In hon­ey­bees, the care­tak­ers are ster­ile fe­males, daugh­ters of the queen, called work­ers.

Work­ers build and main­tain the comb where young bees are raised, gather food (nec­tar and pollen) feed and tend lar­vae, and de­fend the hive and its young from preda­tors and par­a­sites.

Young queens in­herit their hive from their moth­ers. Often sev­eral new queens emerge after the old queen leaves with a swarm to found a new colony. The new queens fight for con­trol of the hive, and only one sur­vives the con­flict. (Ad­jare, 1990; Sam­mataro and Avitabile, 1998)

• Parental Investment
• pre-fertilization
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-independence
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• inherits maternal/paternal territory
• maternal position in the dominance hierarchy affects status of young

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Apis mel­lif­era queens usu­ally live 2 to 3 years, but some have been known to last for 5 years. Work­ers typ­i­cally only live for a few weeks, some­times a few months if their hive be­comes dor­mant in win­ter. Males live for 4-8 weeks at the most. (Tarpy and Page Jr., 2000)

• Typical lifespan
  Status: wild

  2 to 3 years

Be­hav­ior

Eu­ro­pean hon­ey­bees are eu­so­cial in­sects. They live in colonies that con­tain one re­pro­duc­tive fe­male (the queen) and her off­spring. Ster­ile fe­male off­spring of the queen (the work­ers) per­form all the work of the colony and are by far the most nu­mer­ous caste in the hive. Males and queens spend all their ef­fort on re­pro­duc­tion, see the Re­pro­duc­tion sec­tions for in­for­ma­tion on mat­ing be­hav­ior and egg pro­duc­tion.

A. mel­lif­era work­ers show what is called "age poly­ethism." Their be­hav­iors change as they get older. Newly emerged work­ers clean cells, prepar­ing them for a new egg or for food stor­age. After a few days they shift to other hive main­te­nance work, re­mov­ing waste and de­bris, fan­ning to main­tain air cir­cu­la­tion and tem­per­a­ture, pro­cess­ing nec­tar brought by for­agers, and feed­ing the queen and lar­vae from glands in their head and body. In their sec­ond week of adult life work­ers' wax glands be­come ac­tive and they help build and re­pair the comb, while con­tin­u­ing to tend the queen and feed work­ers. Apis mel­lif­era work­ers build a "comb", a sheet of hexag­o­nal cells made of waxes they se­crete. Each cell can house one lar­val bee, and cells are also used as pro­tected stor­age space for honey (processed nec­tar) and pollen.

Be­tween 12 and 25 days, work­ers take a turn guard­ing the hive, in­spect­ing any bees that try to enter the hive - dri­ving off strangers and at­tack­ing any other crea­tures that try to enter. After about three weeks, the work­ers food and wax glands at­ro­phy, and they shift to for­ag­ing duty.

For­ag­ing only oc­curs dur­ing day­light, but bees are ac­tive in the hive con­tin­u­ously.

In tem­per­ate cli­mates, colonies store honey and pollen to feed on dur­ing the win­ter. Dur­ing cold tem­per­a­tures the work­ers and queen form a tight ball or clus­ter, work­ing their flight mus­cles to gen­er­ate heat and keep them­selves warm. In warmer trop­i­cal re­gions, hon­ey­bees main­tain smaller stores of food.

If a colony's nest con­di­tions be­come too poor, the en­tire colony may move to a new site. This is par­tic­u­larly com­mon in trop­i­cal hon­ey­bees, that move in re­sponse to sea­sonal drought. Bee­keep­ers call this "ab­scond­ing", and work to pre­vent it in do­mes­ti­cated colonies.

Swarm­ing is a be­hav­ior in a nest where a new queen is born that takes the place of the older one in that hive. The de­part­ing queen nor­mally takes some of the work­ers with her. Swarm­ing bees send out worker scouts to look for a suit­able home to take the place of the one they left. The swarm of bees is just tem­po­rary. They nor­mally swarm over a twig or branch of a tree or any­where that can be used tem­porar­ily as an in­ter­me­di­ate nest. (Ad­jare, 1990; Sam­mataro and Avitabile, 1998)

• Key Behaviors
• flies
• diurnal
• motile
• hibernation
• social
• colonial

Home Range

Hon­ey­bees for­age as close to the hive as pos­si­ble, usu­ally within a 3 kilo­me­ter ra­dius around the hive (i.e. an area of about about 2800 hectares). If nec­es­sary, they can fly as far as 8-13 km to reach food or water. (Per­ci­val, 1947; Sam­mataro and Avitabile, 1998)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Apis mel­lif­era com­mu­ni­ca­tion is based on chem­i­cal sig­nals, and most of their com­mu­ni­ca­tion and per­cep­tion be­hav­iors are cen­tered around scent and taste. The mem­bers of the hive colony are bound chem­i­cally to each other. Each hive has a unique chem­i­cal sig­na­ture that hive­mates use to rec­og­nize each other and de­tect bees from other colonies.

Within the hive, bees are in con­stant chem­i­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tion with each other. Work­ers feed and groom each other, as well as lar­vae, drones, and the queen. In the process they pass on pheromones, chem­i­cal sig­nals that in­di­cate in­for­ma­tion about the health of the queen and the state of the colony.

Chem­i­cals not only help with de­tect­ing the right sig­na­ture of hives but also with for­ag­ing. Hon­ey­bees use scent to lo­cate flow­ers from a dis­tance. When a suc­cess­ful for­ager re­turns to the hive, it passes the scent of the flow­ers to its nest mates, to help them find the same patch of flow­ers.

Bees also use chem­i­cals to sig­nal out­side the hive. When a worker stings some­thing, her stinger re­leases an alarm pheromone that causes other bees to be­come ag­i­tated, and helps them lo­cate the enemy.

Thought it's al­ways dark in the hive, vi­sion is im­por­tant to hon­ey­bees out­side. They can see other an­i­mals, and rec­og­nize flow­ers. The eyes of Apis species can de­tect ul­tra­vi­o­let light wave­lengths that are be­yond the vis­i­ble spec­trum. This al­lows them to lo­cate the sun on cloudy days, and see mark­ings on flow­ers that are only vis­i­ble in ul­tra­vi­o­let light. One por­tion of hon­ey­bee's eyes is sen­si­tive to po­lar­ized light, and they use this to nav­i­gate.

Work­ers and queens can hear vi­bra­tions. New queens call to each other and work­ers when they first emerge. Work­ers hear the vi­bra­tions of the wag­gle dances made by re­turn­ing for­agers.

Apis species have a par­tic­u­larly no­table form of com­mu­ni­ca­tion called "danc­ing." For­agers that have lo­cated an abun­dant sup­ply of food do a dance to com­mu­ni­cate the lo­ca­tion of the patch to other for­agers. A "round dance" in­di­cates food within about 300 me­ters of the hive, and only com­mu­ni­cates the pres­ence of the flow­ers, not the di­rec­tion, though work­ers will also get the scent from the food the for­ager has brought back. The more com­pli­cated "wag­gle dance" in­di­cates the di­rec­tion and dis­tance of food fur­ther away, using the lo­ca­tion of the sun and the bee's mem­ory of the dis­tance it flew to re­turn to the hive. Sym­bolic com­mu­ni­ca­tion is quite un­usual among in­ver­te­brates, and these hon­ey­bee "dances" have been in­ten­sively stud­ied. (Breed, et al., 1985; Milne and Milne, 2000; Rein­hard, et al., 2004; Roat and Landim, 2008; Sam­mataro and Avitabile, 1998; San­doz, et al., 2002; Sher­man and Viss­cher, 2002)

• Communication Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

• Other Communication Modes
• pheromones
• scent marks
• vibrations

• Perception Channels
• visual
• ultraviolet
• polarized light
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

Food Habits

Apis mel­lif­era feed on pollen and nec­tar col­lected from bloom­ing flow­ers. They also eat honey (stored, con­cen­trated nec­tar) and se­cre­tions pro­duced by other mem­bers of their colony.

Work­ers for­age for food (nec­tar and pollen) for the en­tire colony. They use their tongues to suck up nec­tar, and store it in the an­te­rior sec­tion of the di­ges­tive tract, called the crop. They col­lect pollen by groom­ing it off the bod­ies and onto spe­cial struc­tures on their hind legs called pollen bas­kets.

Re­turn­ing for­agers trans­fer the nec­tar they have col­lected to younger worker bees that in turn feed other mem­bers of the hive, or process it into honey for long-term stor­age. They add en­zymes to the honey, and store it in open cells where the water can evap­o­rate, con­cen­trat­ing the sug­ars.

Young work­ers eat pollen and nec­tar, and se­crete food ma­te­ri­als, called “royal jelly” and “worker jelly”, from glands in their heads. This ma­te­r­ial is fed to young lar­vae, and the amount and type they get de­ter­mines if they will be queens or work­ers.

Hon­ey­bees for­age dur­ing day­light hours, but are equally ac­tive on cloudy or sunny days. They will not fly in heavy rain or high winds, or if the tem­per­a­ture is too ex­treme (work­ers can't fly when they get below 10°C). Dur­ing the warm, calm weather the hon­ey­bees col­lect the most pollen even if it is cloudy. If the light in­ten­sity changes rapidly, they im­me­di­ately stop work­ing and re­turn to the hive. If it lightly rains, pollen col­lec­tion stops, be­cause mois­ture in­hibits the bee’s abil­ity to col­lect it. How­ever, nec­tar col­lec­tion is not in­hib­ited by light rain. Wind also af­fects the rate of pollen col­lec­tion.

Hon­ey­bee work­ers are op­por­tunis­tic. They will steal from other hives if they can. Hive-rob­bing can be dan­ger­ous, but a weak­ened or dam­aged hive may be raided by work­ers from other hives, es­pe­cially when nec­tar flows in flow­ers are not abun­dant. Hon­ey­bees will also col­lect “hon­ey­dew,” the sweet fluid ex­creted by sap-feed­ing in­sects like aphids. (Ad­jare, 1990; Gon­za­lez, et al., 1995; Per­ci­val, 1947; Sam­mataro and Avitabile, 1998)

• Primary Diet
• herbivore
  • nectarivore

• Plant Foods
• nectar
• pollen
• sap or other plant fluids

• Foraging Behavior
• stores or caches food

Pre­da­tion

Hon­ey­bees have many adap­ta­tions for de­fense: Adults have or­ange and black strip­ing that acts as warn­ing col­oration. Preda­tors can learn to as­so­ci­ate that pat­tern with a painful sting, and avoid them. Hon­ey­bees pre­fer to build their hives in pro­tected cav­i­ties (small caves or tree hol­lows). They seal small open­ings with a mix of wax and resins called propo­lis, leav­ing only one small open­ing. Worker bees guard the en­trance of the hive. They are able to rec­og­nize mem­bers of their colony by scent, and will at­tack any non-mem­bers that try to enter the hive. Work­ers and queens have a ven­omous sting at the end of the ab­domen. Un­like queens, and un­usual among sting­ing in­sects, the stings of Apis work­ers are heav­ily barbed and the sting and venom glands tear out of the ab­domen, re­main­ing em­bed­ded in the tar­get. This causes the death of the worker, but may also cause a more painful sting, and dis­cour­age the preda­tor from at­tack­ing other bees or the hive. A sting­ing worker re­leases an alarm pheromone which causes other work­ers to be­come ag­i­tated and more likely to sting, and sig­nals the lo­ca­tion of the first sting.

Hon­ey­bees are sub­ject to many types of preda­tors, some at­tack­ing the bees them­selves, oth­ers con­sum­ing the wax and stored food in the hive. Some preda­tors are spe­cial­ists on bees, in­clud­ing hon­ey­bees.

Im­por­tant in­ver­te­brate en­e­mies of adult bees in­clude crab spi­ders and orb-weaver spi­ders, wasps in the genus Phil­an­thus (called “bee­wolves”), and many species of so­cial wasps in the fam­ily Vesp­i­dae. Vespid wasp colonies are known to at­tack hon­ey­bee colonies en masse, and can wipe out a hive in one at­tack. Many ver­te­brate in­sec­ti­vores also eat adult hon­ey­bees. Toads (Bufo) that can reach the en­trance of hive will sit and eat many work­ers, as will opos­sums (Didel­phis). Birds are an im­por­tant threat – the Merop­i­dae (bee-eaters) in par­tic­u­lar in Africa and south­ern Eu­rope, but also fly­catch­ers around the world (Tyrranidae and Mus­c­i­cap­i­dae). Apis mel­lif­era in Africa are also sub­ject to at­tack by hon­eyguides. These birds eat hive comb, con­sum­ing bees, wax, and stored honey. At least one species, the greater hon­eyguide (In­di­ca­tor in­di­ca­tor) will guide mam­mal hive preda­tors to hives, and then feed on the hive after the mam­mal has opened it up.

The main ver­te­brate preda­tors of hives are mam­mals. Bears fre­quently at­tack the nests of so­cial bees and wasps, as do many mustelids such as the tayra in the Neotrop­ics and es­pe­cially the honey bad­ger of Africa and south­ern and west­ern Asia. In the West­ern Hemi­sphere skunks, ar­madil­los and anteaters also raid hives, as do pan­golins (Manis) in Africa. Large pri­mates, in­clud­ing ba­boons, chim­panzees (<<g.​Pan>>) and go­ril­las are re­ported to at­tack hives too. Smaller mam­mals such as mice (Mus) and rats (Rat­tus) will bur­row into hives as well.

Some in­sects are preda­tors in hives as well, in­clud­ing wax moth lar­vae (Gal­le­ria mel­lonella, Achroia grisella), and hive bee­tles (Hy­lostoma, Aethina), and some species of ants. In their na­tive re­gions these tend not to be im­por­tant en­e­mies, but where hon­ey­bees have not co-evolved with these in­sects and have no de­fense, they can do great harm to hives.

See Ecosys­tem Roles sec­tion for in­for­ma­tion on hon­ey­bee par­a­sites and pathogens. (Ad­jare, 1990; Roubik, 1989; Sam­mataro and Avitabile, 1998)

• Anti-predator Adaptations
• aposematic

• Known Predators

  • Beewolves (Philanthus)
  • Crab spiders (Thomisidae)
  • vespid wasps (Vespidae)
  • bee-eaters (Meropidae)
  • honeyguides (Indicatoridae)
  • bears (Ursidae)
  • honey badgers (Mellivora capensis)
  • skunks (Mephitidae)
  • toads (Bufo)

Ecosys­tem Roles

Hon­ey­bees are very im­por­tant pol­li­na­tors, and are the pri­mary pol­li­na­tor for many plants. With­out hon­ey­bees, these plants have greatly re­duced fer­til­ity. In North Amer­ica and Aus­tralia, where there are no na­tive bee species with large colonies, hon­ey­bees can have es­pe­cially strong ef­fects on na­tive flow­ers, and on other pol­li­na­tors such as soli­tary bee species. Hon­ey­bees abil­ity to re­cruit fel­low work­ers by “danc­ing” al­lows them to be more ef­fi­cient than other pol­li­na­tors at ex­ploit­ing patches of flow­ers. This can cre­ate strong im­pacts on their com­peti­tors, es­pe­cially soli­tary bees.

Like all so­cial in­sects, hon­ey­bees are hosts to a va­ri­ety of par­a­sites, com­men­sal or­gan­isms, and path­o­genic mi­crobes. Some of these can be se­ri­ous prob­lems for api­cul­ture, and have been stud­ied in­ten­sively. At least 18 types of viruses have been found to cause dis­ease in bees, in­clud­ing Sacbrood dis­ease. Sev­eral of them (but not sacbrood virus) are as­so­ci­ated with par­a­sitic mites. Bac­te­ria in­fect bees, no­tably Bacil­lus lar­vae, agent of Amer­i­can Foul­brood dis­ease, and Melis­so­coc­cus plu­ton, agent of Eu­ro­pean Foul­brood. Fungi grow in bee hives, and As­cosphaera apis can cause Chalk­brood dis­ease. One of the most com­mon dis­eases in do­mes­ti­cated hives is Nosema dis­ease, caused by a pro­to­zoan, Nosema apis. An amoeba, Mal­phig­amoeba mel­li­fi­cae, also causes dis­ease in hon­ey­bees.

In re­cent decades, two mite species have spread through do­mes­ti­cated and feral hon­ey­bee pop­u­la­tions around the world. Acara­pis woodi is a small mite species that lives in the tra­cheae of adult bees and feeds on bee he­molymph. It was first dis­cov­ered in Eu­rope, but its ori­gin is un­known. In­fes­ta­tions of these mites weaken bees, and in cold cli­mates, whole colonies may fail when the bees are con­fined in the hive dur­ing the win­ter. A much worse threat is Var­roa de­struc­tor. This might evolved on an Asian hon­ey­bee, Apis cer­ana, but switched on to Apis mel­lif­era colonies that were set up in east Asia. It has since spread all around the world, ex­cept Aus­tralia. Ju­ve­nile mites feed on bee lar­vae and pupae, and adult fe­male mites feed and dis­perse on adult work­ers. This mite is known to spread sev­eral viruses as well. In­fes­ta­tions of V. de­struc­tor often wipe out colonies. Nearly all the feral, un­tended hon­ey­bee colonies in North Amer­i­can are be­lieved to have been wiped out by mite in­fes­ta­tions, along with a large pro­por­tion of do­mes­ti­cated colonies. Other mite species are known from hon­ey­bee colonies, but they are not con­sid­ered harm­ful.

An­other com­men­sal or par­a­sitic species is Braula coeca, the bee louse. De­spite the com­mon name, this is ac­tu­ally a wing­less fly, that ap­par­ently feeds by in­ter­cept­ing food being trans­ferred from one bee to an­other.

Bee­tles in the gen­era Hy­lostoma and Aethina are found in African hon­ey­bee nests, where they seem to do lit­tle harm. How­ever, the "small hive bee­tle", Aethina tu­mida, has be­come a sig­nif­i­cant prob­lem in Eu­ro­pean and North Amer­i­can hives. The lar­vae eat all the con­tents of comb: honey, pollen, and bee eggs and lar­vae. (Ad­jare, 1990; Roubik, 1989; Sam­mataro and Avitabile, 1998)

• Ecosystem Impact
• pollinates
• keystone species

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Hon­ey­bees pol­li­nate bil­lions of US dol­lars worth of com­mer­cial agri­cul­tural crops around the world every year. They are im­por­tant pol­li­na­tors for eco­nom­i­cally im­por­tant wild plant pop­u­la­tions as well.

Hon­ey­bee hives pro­vide honey and wax, and pollen, propo­lis, and royal jelly that are sold for med­i­cines and cos­met­ics.

Hon­ey­bees are im­por­tant study or­gan­isms for re­search in the con­nec­tions be­tween ner­vous sys­tem struc­ture and be­hav­ior.

Some re­search sug­gests hon­ey­bee venom may have med­ically use­ful ap­pli­ca­tions in the treat­ment of auto-im­mune dis­ease or in­flam­ma­tion. (Ad­jare, 1990; Kang, et al., 2002; Sam­mataro and Avitabile, 1998)

• Positive Impacts
• food
• source of medicine or drug
• research and education
• pollinates crops

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Hon­ey­bee work­ers will sting hu­mans and do­mes­ti­cated an­i­mals in de­fense of them­selves or their hive. A sin­gle sting is painful but not dan­ger­ous un­less the tar­get is al­ler­gic to the venom, in which case it can be life threat­en­ing. Oth­er­wise, it takes about 20 stings per kilo­gram of body weight to be life threat­en­ing.

Each sub­species of Apis mel­lif­era has dif­fer­ent be­hav­ioral pat­terns in re­gards to in­trud­ers near or around the hive. The African sub­species are par­tic­u­larly ag­gres­sive. One of them, Apis mel­lif­era scutel­lata, was ac­ci­den­tally re­leased in South Amer­ica, and has spread north to the south­ern United States. This is the "killer bee." It is no­table for hav­ing a much higher ag­gres­sive re­sponse to dis­tur­bance -- more work­ers at­tack than in other sub­species, and they pur­sue tar­gets much longer than Eu­ro­pean bees do. The spread of these bees made bee­keep­ing much more ex­pen­sive and com­pli­cated, and the ag­gres­sive bees caused many deaths. (Ad­jare, 1990; Sam­mataro and Avitabile, 1998)

• Negative Impacts
• injures humans
  • bites or stings
  • venomous

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

While the species as a whole is still very nu­mer­ous, there is con­cern in Eu­rope that wide­spread com­mer­cial­iza­tion of bee­keep­ing is en­dan­ger­ing lo­cally-adapted pop­u­la­tions and sub­species. This, com­bined with higher mor­tal­ity of colonies due to Var­roa mite and tra­cheal mite in­fes­ta­tions, and the re­cent phe­nom­e­non of Colony Col­lapse Dis­or­der in North Amer­ica, has cause sig­nif­i­cant con­cern for the health of the pop­u­la­tion. Colony Col­lapse Dis­or­der (CCD) is a con­di­tion of com­mer­cial bee­hives, where there are sud­den mas­sive waves of mor­tal­ity among the work­ers. Bee­keep­ers dis­cover their hives sim­ply empty of work­ers, with so few sur­viv­ing that they can­not tend the queen and brood. This con­di­tion has oc­curred mainly in North Amer­ica, and mainly in large com­mer­cial api­aries. No sin­gle cause has been iden­ti­fied yet. (Ad­jare, 1990; Sam­mataro and Avitabile, 1998)

• IUCN Red List

  No special status

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

• State of Michigan List

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

George Ham­mond (au­thor, ed­i­tor), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web, Madi­son Blanken­ship (au­thor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Karen Pow­ers (ed­i­tor, in­struc­tor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity.

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