Western honey bee 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 bees. Colony activities are organized by complex communication between individuals, through both
Western honey bee and physiological mechanisms for regulating the temperature of their flight muscles. From low to high air temperatures, the mechanisms are: shivering before flight, and stopping flight for additional shivering; passive body-temperature regulation based on work, and evaporative cooling from regurgitated honey-sac contents. Body temperatures differ, depending on caste and expected foraging rewards. The optimal air temperature for foraging is . During flight, the bee's relatively large flight muscles create heat which must be dissipated. The honey bee uses evaporative cooling to release heat through its mouth. Under hot conditions, heat from the thorax is dissipated through the head; the bee