Asian honey bee (Apis cerana)

Asian honey bee (Apis cerana) is an animal species in Apidae, honey bees that build nests consisting of many combs in cavities that have small entrances, eat pollen and nectar, are very social, live in forests and plantations in an ecosystem together with other bee species.

A. cerana has long, erect hair and covers compound eyes, helps pollen collection, the scutellum is very convex and the lobes are also on the hind wings. Adults are black, with four or five yellow stripes on the abdomen.

Workers use their hind legs to transport pollen and stingers instead of organs for laying eggs. The queen is a reproductive female, usually larger in size because of the enlarged reproductive organs. The drone is male, has bigger eyes, does not have a stinger and is a blunt stomach.

A nest is a simple vertical comb made of wax secreted by workers, whereas thermoregulation is produced by fanning and evaporation of water collected in the field. This large-scale storage tactic requires the construction of a stable and sturdy comb structure for storage of the honey.

The production of wax for combs is an expensive and energetic endeavor, colonies generally do not build entire structures early on. Colonies construct sequences of smaller combs that meet initial storage needs. After moving to a new hive, the colony will continue to enlarge the comb until there are sufficient storage units to meet all the honey needs.

In general, the initial series of combs can be about 20,000 cells, while the finished structure can contain up to 100,000. These nests are usually large enough to accommodate about 6,000 to 7,000 individuals and are found in a variety of external environments.

Asian honey bee maintains body temperature in the range 33-36C even though the ambient temperature varies between 12-36C. A mechanism demonstrating an effective nest thermoregulation system. Workers use evaporative cooling, which gathers outside the nest in hot weather and fan the wings to remove excess heat and humidity inside the hive.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Hexapoda
Class: Insecta
Subclass: Pterygota
Order: Hymenoptera
Suborder: Apocrita
Infraorder: Aculeata
Superfamily: Apoidea
Epifamily: Anthophila
Family: Apidae
Subfamily: Apinae
Tribe: Apini
Genus: Apis
Subgenus: Apis
Species: Apis cerana
Subspecies: Apis cerana ssp. cerana, Apis cerana ssp. indica, Apis cerana ssp. japonica

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