Apis cerana
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| iEastern honey bee | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| Apis cerana Fabricius, 1793 |
Apis cerana, or the Asiatic honey bee (or the Eastern honeybee), are small honey bees of southern and southeastern Asia, such as China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, Bangladesh and Papua New Guinea. This species is the sister species of Apis koschevnikovi, and both are in the same subgenus as the European honey bee, Apis mellifera.
In the wild, they prefer to nest in small spaces, such as hollowed out tree trunks. Like the European honey bee, they are sometimes domesticated and used in apiculture, mostly in wooden boxes with fixed frames. Their size is similar or somewhat smaller than Apis mellifera, and they also have a more prominent abdominal stripes. Their honey yield is smaller, because they form smaller colonies. Their beeswax is used to treat and heal wounds.
Apis cerana is the natural host to the mite Varroa destructor, a serious pest of the European honey bee. Having coevolved with this mite, A. cerana exhibits more careful grooming than A. mellifera, and thus has an effective defense mechanism against Varroa that keeps the mite from devastating colonies. Other than defensive behaviors such as these, much of their behavior and biology (at least in the wild) is very similar to that of A. mellifera.
- Thermal defense: When their hive is invaded by the Japanese giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia), about 500 Japanese honey bees (A. cerana japonica) surround the hornet and vibrate their flight muscles until the temperature is raised to 47°C (117°F), heating the hornet to death, but still under their own lethal limit (48-50°C). European honey bees ( A. mellifera) lack this behavior.
left Apis mellifera, right Apis cerana
[edit] Subspecies
(following Engel, 1999).
- Apis cerana cerana Fabricius ( = "sinensis") - Afghanistan, Pakistan, north India, China and north Vietnam
- Apis cerana heimifeng Engel
- Apis cerana indica - Fabricius South India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines
- Apis cerana japonica Fabricius - Japan
- Apis cerana javana Enderlein
- Apis cerana johni Skorikov
- Apis cerana nuluensis Tingek, Koeniger and Koeniger
- Apis cerana skorikovi Engel ( = "himalaya") - Central and east Himalayan mountains (Ruttner, 1987)
[edit] Sources
- BIODIVERSITY OF HONEYBEES, M.R.Srinivasan, Department of Agricultural Entomology - Tamil Nadu Agricultural University accessed Oct 2005
- Engel, M.S. (1999) The taxonomy of recent and fossil honey bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Apis). Journal of Hymenoptera Research 8: 165-196.
