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
National Honey Bee Day National Honey Bee Day National Honey Bee Day (formerly National Honey Bee Awareness Day) is an awareness day started by beekeepers in United States to build community awareness of the bee industry, through education and promotion. According to its organizers, the National Honey Bee Day program started with a simple concept: The event was started in 2009, by a small group of beekeepers who petitioned for and obtained a formal proclamation by the USDA honoring honey bees and beekeeping. In 2010, a non-profit, Pennsylvania Apiculture Inc. was organized to better facilitate and promote the observance. The original date of observation