Honeybees - Amazing Bees - Beekeepers from Melbourne Australia

Main menu

Honeybees

Amazing Bees

What are Honeybees?

Over 12,000 different species of bees are populating the world - over 1,500 species of native bees exist just here in Australia.

Out of this vast variety, commonly referred to as Honeybees are only a few species.

In a nutshell, what differentiates "Honeybees" from all the other bee species is their capability to produce and store large amounts of honey. For easier access to their honey by humans, honeybees are kept in beehives and managed by beekeepers, i.e. Hive Bees.

Through selective breeding of these species certain favourable characteristics are promoted, resulting in "domesticated" honeybees. Domesticated honeybees are docile (friendly bees, not so eager to sting), prolific (productive and fertile, forming strong colonies), without a strong urge to swarm.

Why are certain bees kept in hives and not others?
Most bee species are not suitable to be hived as they are not living in large colonies; some bee species are solitary bees. Hiving bee colonies becomes economical only when they form large colonies.

The two main reasons to hive bees are:

Pollination - As we grow our crops in concentrated areas, we also need the pollinating bees in those areas when required, which can only bee achieved when larger bee colonies, kept in beehives, can be transported.
Honey - For thousands of years "milk and honey" have been treasured as one of our most valuable food source; and still today honey has its place in our diet. Some bee species have the ability to produce and store large amounts of honey. Beekeepers hive large honeybee colonies for economical reasons, rather than collecting honey drop by drop from small bee colonies in the wild.

What is the purpose of Honeybees?
When thinking about bees, what comes to mind first is "Honey" - and then "a little insect that can sting, I don't want to have them close to me or my children".

Bees produce honey for their own consumption and store it to survive through times when there is nothing to collect - and they only sting as a measure of last defense, mostly when soemone tries to steal their honey or attack their nest , or when they get tangled up in someones hair by accident. If left in peace, bees have no desire to attack and sting.

For hundreds of years beekeepers kept a relationship with honeybees solely for the benefit of obtaining some of their honey. However, the most important role of bees, including our honeybees, is Pollination. More than 40% of our food crops rely on pollination by Hive Bees. No bees, no food. Without bees we would not have the variety of food we enjoy. We could probably give up Honey, but we cannot give up Pollination.

This publication from RIRDC provides excellent and comprehensive information about Pollination. Without managed Pollination with Hive Bees our modern way of farming in concentrated areas would simply not be possible.

Maybe a better term for our Honeybees would be Pollination Bees or simply Hive Bees.

The Main Species of Hive Bees

Most popular among beekeepers is the European Honeybee (Apis mellifera)

Gaining popularity and distribution on the Asian continent is the Eastern Honeybee (Apis cerana)

New, and mainly for crop pollination [The Australian Stingless Bees] - Dedicated page on our website

The European Honeybee (Apis mellifera)
When we talk about Honeybees here in Australia, the European Honeybee is basically what we are talking about.

The different climate zones and geographical regions of Europe have produced different subspecies of the European Honeybee, as illustrated on a map on the right, which can be found on this website: http://www.sicamm.org

The three main subspecies kept here in Australia are:

Italian Bee - Apis mellifera ligustica
The most commonly kept sub-species throughout the world. They are very gentle, not very likely to swarm, and produce a large surplus of honey. Hard workers and fairly prolific breeders. The Italian bee is light coloured and mostly leather coloured, but some strains are golden. Queens vary in colour from leathery brown to orange, which makes them comparatively easy to find in the hive. They have few undesirable characteristics. Colonies tend to maintain larger populations through winter, so they require more winter stores (or feeding) than other subspecies.

Caucasian - Apis mellifera caucasica
This sub-species is regarded as being very gentle and fairly industrious. Some strains are excessive propolizers, in some cases building walls of propolis at the entrance to modify the size to their liking. It is a large honeybee of medium, sometimes greyish colour (Mountain Grey). Queens are black and are more difficult to find than the Italian queens. They keep a fairly strong hive and are not very likely to swarm.

Carniolan - Apis mellifera carnica
Second most popular breed worldwide behind the Italians. Popular with beekeepers due to its extreme gentleness. The Carniolan tends to be quite dark in colour. They keep a moderate strength hive and are not very likely to swarm. The colonies are known to shrink to small populations over winter and build very quickly in spring. It is a mountain bee in its native range (Carniola region of Slovenia, the southern part of the Austrian Alps, and northern Balkans) and is a good bee for colder climates. Workers have grey-white bands round the abdomen. Queens are black and so more difficult to find.

Cross-Breed Mongrels
Any of the abovementioned sub-species are hard to find in their pure form since the introduction of Australian quarantine regulations. Due to the mild climate and pockets of almost undisturbed nature, as well as plenty of nesting places in or near residential areas, the number of feral bee colonies in Australia is fairly high, especially in residential areas, offering the floral variety of residential gardens. It is therefore not surprising that most of the common pollination is performed by feral bees here in Australia.
Since European honeybees were introduced to Australia around 1822, those colonies that have escaped (swarmed) have multiplied and one might think that 190 years of cross-breeding in nature has resulted in a new sub-species, derived from the three introduced European honeybee species - The Australian Honeybee of European descent? - or simply Mongrels.

The Eastern Honeybee (Apis Cerana)
We first need to clarify that to date the presence of the Eastern Honeybee (Apis Cerana) is not welcome in Australia and colonies found are getting destroyed.

When mentioning Apis Cerana in front of a group of commercial beekeepers and honey producers, it feels like poking a stick into a hornets nest - there seem to be a lack of sympathy for the Asian Honeybee here in Australia.

Consider this: To date Australia is the only country in the world free of Varroa destructor, but it appears that everyone has resigned to the fact that it is only a matter of time that we will get it as well - and a remedy against varroa has not been found yet. If Varroa destructor is going to destroy our European Honeybees, maybe the Eastern Honeybee (resistant to Varroa destructor) is the remaining alternative to ensure the much needed pollination of our crops.

Apis Cerana might not be the Honeybee of choice today - it could come to our rescue tomorrow though.

Apis cerana is one of the few bee species that can also be "cultivated". Like the Western honeybee, Apis cerana is kept by farmers for honey production and pollination. Traditionally the bees were kept in log hives, now being replace by wooden boxes with removable frames. The Apis cerana bee size is similar or somewhat smaller than Apis mellifera, and they also have more prominent abdominal stripes.

Apis cerana, the indigenous hive bee of Asia, is very similar to the European honeybee as far as comb building, dancing, and nesting behaviours are concerned. It has been reported to be an excellent pollinator of mountain crops that bloom in early spring, such as almonds, apples, pears, plums, and different vegetable seed crops. However, it produces less honey than Apis mellifera and has some undesirable behavioural characteristics like frequent swarming, absconding, and robbing.

Their honey yield is smaller, because they form smaller colonies and partly because they have yet to benefit from selective breeding programs that have produced modern day Apis mellifera.

Honey production of Apis cerana is being increased through a focused queen breeding and selection programme. It has already been reported that honey production of bee colonies can be increased many times by adopting modern methods and selective breeding programme. Wongsiri (1992) has reported that due to adoption of modern management methods and selective breeding programme in Chonghua County, Guandong of China the colony number and honey yield increased year by year. By 1963, honeybee populations expanded from 2,000 to 6,000 colonies and honey yields increased from 5 kg/year to 50 kg/year (Wongsiri, 1992).

Apis cerana is found at altitudes from sea level up to 3,500 metres in areas with appropriate flora and climate. This bee species has adapted to adverse climatic conditions and can survive extreme fluctuations in temperature and long periods of rainfall. It is unique in its ability to survive temperatures as low as -0.1ºC, a temperature lethal for other bee species (Apis mellifera).

Apis cerana is a natural host to the Varroa destructor mite and the parasite Nosema ceranae, both serious pests of the Western honey bee. Having coevolved with these parasites, Apis cerana exhibits more careful grooming than Apis mellifera, and thus has an effective defence mechanism against Varroa that keeps the mite from devastating colonies. Other than defensive behaviours such as these, much of their behaviour and biology (at least in the wild) is very similar to that of Apis mellifera.
Workers do not re-use old wax as often as in other bee species and therefore their brood capping looks much lighter than those of Apis mellifera; they usually tear down old combs and build new wax constantly.
When an Apis cerana hive is invaded by the Japanese giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia), about 500 Japanese honey bees Apis cerana japonica surround the hornet and vibrate their flight muscles until the temperature is raised to 47°C, heating the hornet to death, but keeping the temperature still under their own lethal limit (48-50°C). European honeybees lack this behaviour.