---
title: "What the sources say about the Western Honeybee | AnimalTracks.wiki"
description: "39 claims from the Western Honeybee profile, each beside the words of the source that backs it."
image: "https://animaltracks.wiki/images/animals/honeybee-1.webp"
canonical: "https://animaltracks.wiki/animals/honeybee/sources/"
---

# What the sources say about the Western Honeybee (*Apis mellifera*)

> 39 claims from the Western Honeybee profile, each beside the words of the source that backs it. A "..." marks a cut in a quote and [brackets] an insertion.

Profile: [Western Honeybee](https://animaltracks.wiki/animals/honeybee/)

## Apis mellifera (honey bee). Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan.

https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Apis_mellifera/

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| A forager who dances flower coordinates with her whole body, and dies giving her sting. | the stings of Apis workers are heavily barbed and the sting and venom glands tear out of the abdomen, remaining embedded in the target. This causes the death of the worker (note: tagline; the dance-with-her-body half is covered by the kohl-rutschmann-2021 claims below) |
| Waggle-dance directions read from the sun and gravity, a barbed sting that costs its owner her life, and a nest built from hexagonal wax cells. | Apis mellifera workers build a "comb", a sheet of hexagonal cells made of waxes they secrete. (note: stats.superpower; the sun/gravity half is covered by the kohl-rutschmann-2021 gravity-orientation claim below, the sting half by the tagline claim above) |
| Meadows, open woodland, gardens and farmland worldwide, nesting in tree hollows and other cavities | European honeybees prefer habitats that have an abundant supply of suitable flowering plants, such as meadows, open wooded areas, and gardens... They need cavities (e.g. in hollow trees) to nest in. (note: stats.habitat, combining the Habitat and Physical Description sections with the page's own 'agricultural' habitat-feature tag for farmland; worldwide is covered by the geographic-range claim below) |
| Apis mellifera comes in three sizes packed into one colony. | sterile workers are smaller (adults 10-15 mm long), fertile queens are larger (18-20 mm). Males, called drones, are 15-17 mm long at maturity. (note: the three sizes are worker, queen and drone, detailed in the next claim) |
| Three Sizes and a Barbed Sting | sterile workers are smaller (adults 10-15 mm long), fertile queens are larger (18-20 mm). Males, called drones, are 15-17 mm long at maturity. (note: heading; the barbed sting is the next section claim. ADW names two castes of females plus males, so the heading says sizes, not castes) |
| Sterile female workers run 10 to 15 millimeters long, queens stretch to 18 to 20 millimeters, and males, called drones, land in between at 15 to 17 millimeters. | sterile workers are smaller (adults 10-15 mm long), fertile queens are larger (18-20 mm). Males, called drones, are 15-17 mm long at maturity. |
| A worker's sting is heavily barbed. When she uses it, the sting and its venom glands tear out of her abdomen and stay embedded in the target, and that kills her. | the stings of Apis workers are heavily barbed and the sting and venom glands tear out of the abdomen, remaining embedded in the target. This causes the death of the worker |
| A stinging worker also releases an alarm pheromone that makes other workers agitated and more likely to sting. | A stinging worker releases an alarm pheromone which causes other workers to become agitated and more likely to sting |
| A forager who finds food within about 300 meters of the hive does a simple "round dance" that says food is nearby but not in which direction. | A "round dance" indicates food within about 300 meters of the hive, and only communicates the presence of the flowers, not the direction |
| while her worker daughters typically live for only a few weeks | Workers typically only live for a few weeks (note: blockquote; 'only' is ADW's own word) |
| A colony has one reproductive female, the queen, and she usually lives two to three years. | Apis mellifera queens usually live 2 to 3 years (note: one reproductive female: ADW 'They live in colonies that contain one reproductive female (the queen) and her offspring.') |
| Her sterile daughters, the workers, do all the colony's work | Sterile female offspring of the queen (the workers) perform all the work of the colony |
| two to four weeks in summer, though a worker that lives through the winter can last as long as 11 months | Adult workers will live for 2-4 weeks in the summer, or as long as 11 months if they live through the winter. |
| Apis mellifera feeds on nectar and pollen collected from blooming flowers | Apis mellifera feed on pollen and nectar collected from blooming flowers. |
| Workers build comb from wax they secrete, a sheet of hexagonal cells that also stores honey, which is processed nectar, and pollen. | Each cell can house one larval bee, and cells are also used as protected storage space for honey (processed nectar) and pollen. (note: comb of hexagonal wax cells: the superpower claim's quote) |
| The species is native to Europe, western Asia and Africa. Human introduction to other continents began in the 17th century, and it now lives all around the world, including east Asia, Australia and the Americas. | Apis mellifera is native to Europe, western Asia, and Africa. Human introduction of
Apis mellifera to other continents started in the 17th century, and now they are found all around
the world, including east Asia, Australia and North and South America. |
| It favours places rich in flowering plants, such as meadows, open woodland and gardens, and nests in cavities such as hollow trees. | European honeybees prefer habitats that have an abundant supply of suitable flowering
plants, such as meadows, open wooded areas, and gardens... They need cavities
(e.g. in hollow trees) to nest in. |
| Unlike a worker's, a queen's sting is not heavily barbed, so it does not rip out of her body when she uses it. | Unlike queens, and unusual among stinging insects, the stings of Apis workers are heavily barbed and the sting and venom glands tear out of the abdomen (note: the 'so' is the source's own contrast: the barb is what makes a worker's sting tear out) |
| once a swarm has left, the new queens still in the old hive try to sting and kill one another, fighting on until a single queen survives | After the swarming is completed, any remaining new queens try to sting and kill each other, continuing to fight until all but one is dead. |
| A drone that successfully mates with a queen in flight drops away from her afterward and dies within a few hours or days. Drones who do not mate simply keep loitering near the mating grounds, trying again until they succeed or die trying. | Each male who
succeeds in mating drops away, and dies within a few hours or days. Males who do not
mate will continue to loiter in the assembly areas until they mate or die trying. |
| Queens Outlive Their Workers | Apis mellifera queens usually live 2 to 3 years, but some have been known to last for 5 years. Workers typically only live for a few weeks (note: heading) |
| Nectar, Pollen and a Worldwide Range | now they are found all around the world (note: heading; nectar and pollen is the Food Habits claim) |

## Brown et al. (2022). Dream Team for Honey Bee Health: Pollen and Unmanipulated Gut Microbiota Promote Worker Longevity and Body Weight. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems.

https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2022.864741

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| Nectar and pollen from flowers, pollen being its only protein source | Pollen collected by foragers in the environment constitutes the unique source of protein (note: stats.diet; nectar and pollen from flowers is the ADW Food Habits line claimed in the body below) |
| caged worker bees weighed between 0.0776 and 0.1886 grams | The fresh body weight of all experimental workers ranged from 0.0776 and 0.1886 g ( N = 60 workers per treatment, total N = 240 total workers, mean = 0.13537 g (note: scoped to a hoarding-cage feeding trial with freshly emerged summer workers) |
| One caged feeding trial recorded worker lifespans anywhere from 3 to 61 days, averaging under three weeks. | The experimental workers lived between 3 and 61 days (global mean: 18.77 days, SD = 9.9 (note: 18.77 days is about 2.7 weeks; caged summer workers in one lab trial, not a natural-conditions average) |
| pollen is its only source of protein | Pollen collected by foragers in the environment constitutes the unique source of protein |

## AnAge entry for Apis mellifera. AnAge: The Animal Ageing and Longevity Database, Human Ageing Genomic Resources.

https://genomics.senescence.info/species/entry.php?species=Apis_mellifera

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| A queen has been reported living up to eight years | Queens have been reported to live up to 8 years. (note: blockquote. ADW (older) says 'some have been known to last for 5 years'; AnAge's 8 is a reported maximum and is kept hedged as AnAge hedges it) |
| foraging keeps their lives short | Workers have a short lifespan due to foraging |

## Kohl & Rutschmann (2021). Honey bees communicate distance via non-linear waggle duration functions. PeerJ.

https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11187

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| For food farther away she switches to the waggle dance: a straight run while shaking her abdomen, then a turn back to the starting point, circuit after circuit. | Each circuit is composed of the waggle phase, in which the bee walks straight and shakes its abdomen, and the return phase, in which it turns back and walks to the starting point. (note: 'farther away' is ADW's 'The more complicated "waggle dance" indicates the direction and distance of food further away'; 'circuit after circuit' is Kohl's 'sequences of dance circuits') |
| On the vertical comb inside the dark hive she orients her body relative to gravity, and that angle stands in for the direction to the food relative to the sun's position. | When dancing on the vertical comb inside the dark hive, a dancer refers to gravity, and its body orientation with reference to the upwards direction encodes the direction to the resource with reference the sun's current position over the horizon. |
| Researchers who trained honeybees to feeders up to 1.7 kilometers away found that the straight run's duration does not grow evenly with distance: it climbs faster over the first kilometer and more slowly beyond it. | between 0.1 and 1.7 km from the hive... The distance-related increase in waggle duration was better described by a non-linear model with a decreasing slope than by a simple linear model. The relationship was equally well captured by a model with two linear segments separated at a “break-point” at 1 km distance. (note: 'climbs faster, then more slowly beyond it' paraphrases the decreasing slope and the break-point at 1 km; the duration still rises past 1 km, so nothing says it flattens) |
| One study trained honeybees to sugar feeders between 0.1 and 1.7 kilometers from the hive and timed the dances they performed on returning. | We trained honey bees ( A. mellifera carnica ) to visit sugar feeders over a relatively long array of distances between 0.1 and 1.7 km from the hive and measured the duration of both the waggle phase and the return phase of their dances from video recordings. |
| It also lists an older study of the dance, by Lindauer, that trained bees up to 11 kilometers from the hive. | the study by Lindauer (1960) (see von Frisch, 1965 ), who trained bees up to 11 km from the hive is outside of the plotting range of the figure (note: the figure plots dance duration against feeder distance from earlier studies of the dance) |
| Dancing in a Dark Hive | When dancing on the vertical comb inside the dark hive (note: heading; ADW also says 'it's always dark in the hive') |
| repeats one routine circuit after circuit: a straight run while shaking her abdomen, then a turn back to the start | Each circuit is composed of the waggle phase, in which the bee walks straight and shakes its abdomen, and the return phase, in which it turns back and walks to the starting point. (note: vibe.reason, settled in #913) |
| her body's angle to gravity standing in for the direction to food | When dancing on the vertical comb inside the dark hive, a dancer refers to gravity, and its body orientation with reference to the upwards direction encodes the direction to the resource with reference the sun's current position over the horizon. (note: vibe.reason, settled in #913) |

## Moro et al. (2025). Apis mellifera. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2025: e.T42463639A277757621.

https://doi.org/10.2305/iucn.uk.2025-2.rlts.t42463639a277757621.en

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| The Red List's most recent assessment, from 2025, covers Europe only and lists the western honeybee there as Data Deficient, with a decreasing population trend. | Apis mellifera has most recently been assessed for The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in 2025. Apis mellifera is listed as Data Deficient... POPULATION TREND Decreasing |
| covers Europe only | SCOPE OF ASSESSMENT Europe |
| Not Evaluated | SCOPE OF ASSESSMENT Europe (note: stats.conservationStatus; the Red List's only assessment for this binomial is the 2025 Europe-regional one (Data Deficient), so there is no global category to report and the site's global field stays Not Evaluated) |