Honey bee one queen bee, a fertile female; seasonally up to a few thousand drone bees, or fertile males; and tens of thousands of sterile female worker bees. Details vary among the different species of honey bees, but common features include: In cold climates, honey bees stop flying when the temperature drops below about and crowd into the central area of the hive to form a "winter cluster". The worker bees huddle around the queen bee at the center of the cluster, shivering to keep the center between at the start of winter (during the broodless period) and once the queen resumes
Honey bee honey bee which has been domesticated for honey production and crop pollination; modern humans also value the wax for candlemaking and other crafts. Honey bees represent only a small fraction of the roughly 20,000 known species of bees. Some other types of related bees produce and store honey and have been kept by humans for that purpose, including the stingless honey bees, but only members of the genus "Apis" are true honey bees. The study of bees, which includes the study of honey bees, is known as melittology. The genus name "Apis" is Latin for "bee". Although modern dictionaries may