Western honey bee "Apis mellifera" is thought to have originated in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Western honey bee The western honey bee or European honey bee ("Apis mellifera") is the most common of the 7–12 species of honey bee worldwide. The genus name "Apis" is Latin for "bee", and "mellifera" is the Latin for "honey-bearing", referring to the species' production of honey. Like all honey bees, the western honey bee is eusocial, creating colonies with a single fertile female (or "queen"), many normally non-reproductive females or "workers," and small proportion of fertile males or "drones." Individual colonies can house tens of thousands of
Honey bee surface of the comb, which is horizontal (not vertical, as in other species), and worker bees orient the dance in the actual compass direction of the resource to which they are recruiting. "Apis mellifera carnica" honey bees use their antennae asymmetrically for social interactions with a strong lateral preference to use their right antennae. There has been speculation as to honeybee consciousness. The bee was used as a symbol of government by Emperor Napoleon I of France. Both the Hindu "Atharva Veda" and the ancient Greeks associated lips anointed with honey with the gift of eloquence and even of prescience.