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| Giant honey bee | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Close-up of workers on comb
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| Apis dorsata Fabricius, 1793 |
Apis dorsata, the Giant honey bee, is a honey bee of southern and southeastern Asia mainly in forested areas like the Terai of Nepal. The subspecies with the largest individuals is the Himalayan cliff honey bee - Apis dorsata laboriosa - but typical Apis dorsata workers from other subspecies are around 17-20 mm long (nearly one inch).
Nests are mainly built in exposed places far off the ground, on tree limbs and under cliff overhangs, and sometimes on buildings. Apis dorsata is an aggressive bee and has never been domesticated (as they do not use enclosed cavities for nesting). They can be extremely dangerous if the colony is provoked. Each colony consists of a single vertical comb (sometimes approaching a square metre) suspended from above, and the comb is typically covered by a dense mass of bees in several layers. When disturbed, the workers may exhibit a defensive behavior known as defense waving. Bees in the outer layer thrust their abdomens ninety degrees in an upward direction and shake them in a synchronous way. This may be accompanied by stroking of the wings. The signal is transmitted to nearby workers that also adopt the posture, thus creating a visible (and audible) ‘ripple’ effect across the face of the comb, in an almost identical manner to an audience wave at a crowded stadium.
These bees are tropical and in most places they migrate seasonally. Some recent evidence indicates that the bees return to the same nest site, even though most, if not all, the original workers might be replaced in the process – but the mechanism of memory retention remains a mystery.
Despite its aggressive nature, indigenous peoples have traditionally used this species as a source of honey and beeswax, a practice known as honey hunting.
Subspecies
Engel (1999) recognized the following subspecies:
- Apis dorsata dorsata; primarily from India
- Apis dorsata binghami Cockerell; (Indonesian honey bee) from Malaysia and Indonesia
- Apis dorsata breviligula Maa; from the Philippines
- Apis dorsata laboriosa Fabricius; (Himalayan cliff honey bee), also in Myanmar, Laos, and southern China.
The latter is not distinct morphologically from the nominate, but has different housekeeping and swarming behavior, allowing it to survive at high altitudes. In addition, there has been little gene flow between it and A. dorsata for millions of years; accordingly, some (Arias & Sheppard 2005) argue that it should be classified as a species. Likewise, the southeastern taxon binghami seems also to be distinct. The limits of their ranges in Indochina and the possible distinctness of the geographically distant Philippines population require more study (Arias & Sheppard 2005). However, the use of the taxonomic rank of "subspecies" is typical for geographically discrete populations, so the difference in opinion here is whether or not to recognize the rank of subspecies or not (i.e., no one is disputing that they are distinct lineages, the dispute is over whether to call them "species").
References
- Arias, Maria C. & Sheppard, Walter S. (2005): Phylogenetic relationships of honey bees (Hymenoptera:Apinae:Apini) inferred from nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequence data. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 37(1): 25–35. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2005.02.017. Erratum in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 40(1): 315. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2006.02.002
- Engel, Michael S. (1999): The taxonomy of recent and fossil honey bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Apis). Journal of Hymenoptera Research 8: 165-196.
