| Apis mellifera litorea | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Family: | Apidae |
| Genus: | Apis |
| Species: | |
| Subspecies: | A. m. litorea |
| Trinomial name | |
| Apis mellifera litorea Smith, 1961 [1] | |
Apis mellifera litorea(East African coastal honey bee) is a subspecies of the Western honey bee with a narrow coastal range mainly on the plains of Mozambique, it belongs to the A (Africa) Lineage of honey bees. [2]
The native habitat of A. m. litorea extends northwards along the narrow coastal plain of Kenya and Tanzania, and southwards towards the plains of Mozambique. [3]
It is a yellow bee, visually similar to its westerly neighbor the A. m. scutellata except for it much smaller size. However relative to its body and leg sizes it has a long proboscis. [4]
Due to its smaller size, it builds small cells averaging only 4.62mm wide, with comb spacing ranging from 28-30mm. Its natural coastal range has a nearly continual nectar flow, resulting in brood being reared throughout most of the year. However in periods of dearth it will readily abscond when stores are exhausted.
Absconding can also be triggered by the colony coming under attack from the wasp Palarus latifrons (Bee Pirate). [5]
A honey bee is a eusocial flying insect within the genus Apis of the bee clade, all native to mainland Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current cosmopolitan distribution of honey bees, introducing multiple subspecies into South America, North America, and Australia.
Karl Ritter von Frisch, was a German-Austrian ethologist who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973, along with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz.
Within biological taxonomy, a honey bee race would be an informal rank in the taxonomic hierarchy, below the level of subspecies. It has been used as a higher rank than strain, with several strains making up one race. Therefore, a strain is a lower-level taxonomic rank used at the intraspecific level within a race of a subspecies. Strains are often seen as inherently artificial concepts, more usually within biology as characterized by a specific intent for genetic isolation, however, within beekeeping circles, strain is more likely to be used to describe very minor differences throughout the same subspecies, such as the color ranges of A. m. carnica from brown to grey. Within A. m. ligustica there are two races, the darker leather brown northern Italian bee from the Ligurian Alps region which was discovered to be resistant to acarine in the 1900s, while the other Italian bee race, from regions near Bologna and further south, was highly susceptible to acarine and within this race there are two color strains, the traditional Italian yellow and a rarer all-golden color.
The European dark bee is a subspecies of the western honey bee, evolving in central Asia, with a proposed origin of the Tien Shan Mountains and later migrating into eastern and then northern Europe after the last ice age from 9,000BC onwards. Its original range included the southern Urals in Russia and stretched through northern Europe and down to the Pyrenees. They are one of the two members of the 'M' lineage of Apis mellifera, the other being in western China. Traditionally they were called the Black German Bee, although they are now considered endangered in Germany. However today they are more likely to be called after the geographic / political region in which they live such as the British Black Bee, the Native Irish Honey Bee, the Cornish Black Bee and the Nordic Brown Bee, even though they are all the same subspecies, with the word "native" often inserted by local beekeepers, even in places where the bee is an introduced foreign species. It was domesticated in Europe and hives were brought to North America in the colonial era in 1622 where they were referred to as the English Fly by the Native Americans.
The Caucasian honey bee is a subspecies of the western honey bee.
Waggle dance is a term used in beekeeping and ethology for a particular figure-eight dance of the honey bee. By performing this dance, successful foragers can share information about the direction and distance to patches of flowers yielding nectar and pollen, to water sources, or to new nest-site locations with other members of the colony.
Apis koschevnikovi, Koschevnikov's honey bee, is a species of honey bee which inhabits Malaysian and Indonesian Borneo, where it lives sympatrically with other honey bee species such as Apis cerana.
Apis nigrocincta is a species of honey bee that inhabits the Philippine island of Mindanao as well as the Indonesian islands of Sangihe and Sulawesi. The species is known to have queens with the highest mating frequencies of any species of the tribe Apini.
The East African lowland honey bee is a subspecies of the western honey bee. It is native to central, southern and eastern Africa, though at the southern extreme it is replaced by the Cape honey bee. This subspecies has been determined to constitute one part of the ancestry of the Africanized bees spreading through North and South America.
The Macedonian bee is a subspecies of the Western honey bee. It is found mainly in Albania, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Northern Greece and other places in the Balkans as well. Originally this subspecies was described based on morphological characteristics by Friedrich Ruttner, as were the adami, cecropia and cypria subspecies.
Apis mellifera iberiensis, or the Spanish bee, is a western honey bee subspecies native to the Iberian Peninsula. It is also found on the Balearic Islands.
Apis cerana, the eastern honey bee, Asiatic honey bee or Asian honey bee, is a species of honey bee native to South, Southeast and East Asia. This species is the sister species of Apis koschevnikovi and both are in the same subgenus as the western (European) honey bee, Apis mellifera. A. cerana is known to live sympatrically along with Apis koschevnikovi within the same geographic location. Apis cerana colonies are known for building nests consisting of multiple combs in cavities containing a small entrance, presumably for defense against invasion by individuals of another nest. The diet of this honey bee species consists mostly of pollen and nectar, or honey. Moreover, Apis cerana is known for its highly social behavior, reflective of its classification as a type of honey bee.
Apis mellifera intermissa is an African subspecies of the western honey bee.
Friedrich Otto Vogel was a German human geneticist. Together with Arno Motulsky he established the journal Human Genetics in 1964, of which he remained editor-in-chief for more than 25 years. He was a member of the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. In 1962, Vogel was named professor of human genetics and founding chair of the Institute of Anthropology and Human Genetics at Heidelberg University. Vogel became the leading German human geneticist and played a significant role in the rehabilitation of this field after the misuse of genetics by the Nazi regime (1932-1945).
Wolfgang Händler was a German mathematician, pioneering computer scientist and professor at Leibniz University Hannover and University of Erlangen–Nuremberg known for his work on automata theory, parallel computing, artificial intelligence, man-machine interfaces and computer graphics.
Friedrich Ruttner was an Austrian SA-member, NSDAP member, SS-physician, neurologist, zoologist and bee expert. He became internationally known for his advances in honey bee breeding, instrumental insemination, classification of various subspecies and as a co-founder of Apidologie.
Apis mellifera adansonii(Western African bee) is a subspecies of the Western honey bee with probably the largest range of Apis mellifera in Africa, belonging to the A (Africa) Lineage of honey bees. Originally identified by Michael Adansonin in his Histoire naturelle du Seneegal in 1757. Initially the name adsansonii was misapplied to A. m. scutelleta and in particular to the Africanised bees of South America.
Apis mellifera unicolor is known by the common name of the Madagascar honey bee, sometimes also called the Malagasy honey bee,, it is endemic to the island of Madagascar.
Apis mellifera meda is known by the common names of the Median honey bee or the Iranian honey bee. Its range covers the non desert areas of most of Iran and Iraq, but also into southeastern Turkey, across northern Syria as far as the coast of the Mediterranean. Colonies have been observed in the Azarbaijan Iranian highlands at elevations up to 3000m. Initially based on morphometric evaluation, but then later confirmed with DNA analysis, they belong to the O Lineage of Apis mellifera.