Antique Engraved Illustration Of The Western Honey Bee. Vintage Illustration Of The European Honey Bee. Old Engraved Royalty-Free Cartoon

Antique engraved illustration of the western honey bee. Vintage illustration of the European honey bee. Old engraved picture of the western honey bee & x28;Apis mellifera& x29;. The western honey bee or European honey bee & x28;Apis mellifera& x29; is the most common of the 7 12 species of honey bees worldwide. The genus name Apis is Latin for bee , and mellifera is the Latin for honey-bearing or honey carrying , referring to the species& x27; production of honey. Like all honey bee species, the western honey bee is eusocial, creating colonies with a single fertile female & x28;or queen & x29;, many normally non-reproductive females or workers , and a 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 pheromones and the dance language. The western honey bee was one of the first domesticated insects, and it is the primary species maintained by beekeepers to this day for both its honey production and pollination activities. With human assistance, the western honey bee now occupies every continent except Antarctica. Western honey bees are threatened by pests and diseases, especially the Varroa mite and colony collapse disorder. There are indications that the species is rare, if not extinct in the wild in Europe and as of 2019, the western honey bee is listed as Extinct on the IUCN Red List, while also acknowledging Data Deficient . Numerous studies indicate that the species has undergone significant declines in Europe however, it is not clear if they refer to population reduction of wild or managed colonies. Further research is required to enable differentiation between wild and non-wild colonies in order to determine the conservation status of the species in the wild, meaning self sustaining, without treatments or management. Western honey bees are an important model organism in scientific studies, particularly in the fields of social evolution, learning, and memory they are also used in studies of pesticide toxicity, especially via pollen, to assess non-target impacts of commercial pesticides.