Western honey bee and Africa", making conservation of wild-bee diversity important. They further argue that the difficulty of controlling drones for mating is a serious handicap and a sign that domestication is not complete, in particular as "extensive gene flow usually occurs between wild/feral and managed honeybee populations". The honey bee is a colonial insect which is housed, transported by and sometimes fed by beekeepers. Honey bees do not survive and reproduce individually, but as part of the colony (a superorganism). Honey bees collect flower nectar and convert it to honey, which is stored in the hive. The nectar, transported in the bees'
Western honey bee been collecting honey from bees for thousands of years, with evidence in the form of rock art found in France and Spain, dating to around 7000 BCE. The honey bee is one of the few invertebrate animals to have been domesticated. Bees were likely first domesticated in ancient Egypt, where tomb paintings depict bee-keeping. Europeans brought bees to North America in 1622. Beekeepers have selected bees for several desirable features: These modifications, along with artificial change of location, have improved bees from the point of view of the beekeeper, and simultaneously made them more dependent on beekeepers for their survival.