Apis dorsata laboriosa, the
Himalayan honey bee, is the world’s largest
honey beeHoney bees are a subset of bees, primarily distinguished by the production and storage of honey and the construction of perennial, colonial nests out of wax. Honey bees are the only extant members of the tribe Apini, all in the genus Apis...
;
single adults can measure up to in length. Before 1980,
Apis dorsata laboriosa was considered to be a
subspeciesSubspecies in biological classification, is 1) a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, or 2) a taxonomic unit, a taxon in that rank...
of the widespread
Apis dorsataApis dorsata, the Giant honey bee, is a honey bee of southern and southeastern Asia mainly in forested areas like the Terai of Nepal...
, the giant honey bee, but in 1980 and for almost 20 years thereafter it was elevated to the rank of a separate species. It is now classified once again as a subspecies of
Apis dorsata (
EngelEngel means angel in some non-English languages and may refer to:*"Engel" , performed by Rammstein*Engel , a 2002 role-playing game*Engel , Swedish industrial/melodic death metal band*Engel group*Engel expansion...
, 1999).
Apis dorsata laboriosa, the
Himalayan honey bee, is the world’s largest
honey beeHoney bees are a subset of bees, primarily distinguished by the production and storage of honey and the construction of perennial, colonial nests out of wax. Honey bees are the only extant members of the tribe Apini, all in the genus Apis...
;
single adults can measure up to in length. Before 1980,
Apis dorsata laboriosa was considered to be a
subspeciesSubspecies in biological classification, is 1) a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, or 2) a taxonomic unit, a taxon in that rank...
of the widespread
Apis dorsataApis dorsata, the Giant honey bee, is a honey bee of southern and southeastern Asia mainly in forested areas like the Terai of Nepal...
, the giant honey bee, but in 1980 and for almost 20 years thereafter it was elevated to the rank of a separate species. It is now classified once again as a subspecies of
Apis dorsata (
EngelEngel means angel in some non-English languages and may refer to:*"Engel" , performed by Rammstein*Engel , a 2002 role-playing game*Engel , Swedish industrial/melodic death metal band*Engel group*Engel expansion...
, 1999). It is highly adapted to its highland
habitatThe term habitat has a number of meanings:* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows** Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...
in behavior and there has evidently been little
gene flowIn population genetics, gene flow is the transfer of alleles of genes from one population to another.Migration into or out of a population may be responsible for a marked change in allele frequencies...
between it and lowland
A. dorsata for millions of years; some consider this evidence that it should be classified as a species (Arias & Sheppard 2005).
Limited to the
HimalayasThe Himalaya Range or Himalayas for short , meaning "abode of snow", is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
, it is the one the biggest of the
Apis*Advance Passenger Information System*Armour Piercing Incendiary Shells...
species. So far it has only been identified in the mountainous regions of
BhutanThe Kingdom of Bhutan is a landlocked nation in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalaya Mountains and is bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by People's Republic of China. Bhutan is separated from the nearby state of Nepal to the west by...
, the
ChineseChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
province of
YunnanYunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately 394,000 square kilometers . The capital of the province is Kunming...
,
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
, and
NepalNepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia and the world's youngest republic. It is bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
. It mostly nests at altitudes between , building very large nests under overhangs on the south-western faces of vertical cliffs. One nest can contain as much as of honey. The bees forage at altitudes of up to . Due to its peculiar nesting behavior, the Himalayan honey bee is also referred to as the
Himalayan cliff honey bee. The term "Himalayan honey bee" is sometimes used more informally, for any of the four varieties of honey bees that are found in the Himalayan region;
Apis ceranaApis cerana, or the Asiatic honey bee , are small honey bees of southern and southeastern Asia, such as China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, Bangladesh and Papua New Guinea...
,
Apis floreaThe Dwarf honey bee or the Red dwarf honey bee is one of two species of small, wild honey bees of southern and southeastern Asia. It has a much wider distribution than its sister species, Apis andreniformis....
,
Apis dorsataApis dorsata, the Giant honey bee, is a honey bee of southern and southeastern Asia mainly in forested areas like the Terai of Nepal...
and
Apis dorsata laboriosa.
There are three different types of
Apis dorsata laboriosa honeyHoney is a sweet food made by some insects using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans...
: spring or red honey that is collected at higher altitudes, spring honey collected at mid and lower altitudes, and autumn honey from any site. Red honey has an intoxicating effect and various relaxing qualities that decrease over storage. It is not consumed locally as it is valuable, and honey hunters prefer to sell it at a high price. As hive bees are not kept at such high altitudes,
Apis dorsata laboriosa is the only bee species to produce this honey. The wholesale price of the red honey is about five times the price of regular honey from
Apis mellifera or
Apis cerana and large amounts of it are exported from Nepal to
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
,
KoreaKorea is a civilization and formerly unified nation currently divided into two states. Located on the Korean Peninsula, it borders China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the east by the Korea Strait....
, and
Hong KongHong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a highly autonomous territory of the People's Republic of China, facing Guangdong to the north and the South China Sea to the east, west and south...
. The red honey is prized for its purported medicinal value and intoxicating qualities.
Sources
(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.
. Erratum in
Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 40(1): 315.
(1999): The taxonomy of recent and fossil honey bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae:
Apis).
Journal of Hymenoptera Research 8: 165-196. (2003): "The Himalayan Cliff Bee
Apis laboriosa and the Honey Hunters of Kaski: Indigenous Honeybees of the Himalayas" http://books.icimod.org/index.php/search/publication/124.
1: 52. (2007): The Importance of honey bees, http://bees4livelihood.icimod.org/home/?q=node/103 (1990) Time of drone flight of Apis laboriosa Smith in Nepal, Apidologie 21, 501–504. (1990) Seasonal nesting cycle and migration patterns of the Himalayan honey bee Apis laboriosa, Natl. Geogr. Res. 6, 276–290. (2001) A scientific note on Apis laboriosa winter nesting and brood rearing in the Himalayas, Apidologie 32, 601–602.