Apis mellifera

Remember Taxonomic Classification from Biology class? Every living organism is named scientifically and classified into seven groups…working from the largest most inclusive group (kingdom) all the way down to the most specific group (species). Or maybe you remember the saying “Kings Play Chess On Fine Green Stools”? The seven groups in the classification system are: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. The honey bee has the scientific name of Apis mellifera because it belongs to the genus apis and the species mellifera. This was a nice inclusive summary I found on savannahbee.com

Honey Bee Taxonomy

• Kingdom – Animalia (Metazoa) Honeybees are animals!

• Phylum – Arthropoda  These animals have exoskeletons and jointed legs. (Arthropod means “jointed leg.”)

• Class – Insecta  Honeybees are insects. They have jointed legs, compound eyes, antennae, exoskeletons, and three-part bodies.

• Order – Hymenoptera, translating to mean “membraned wings.” This order includes bees, ants, wasps, and sawflies.

• Family – Apidae, Latin meaning “bee.”

• Genus – Apis, also referring to “bee.”

• Species – Mellifera, relating to honey production.

According to the USGS, There are over 20,000 known bee species in the world, and 4,000 of them are native to the United States. Can you spot a honey bee? There are a lot of pollinators out there but we tend to keep an eye out specifically for the honey bee.

I snapped a few quick pictures this morning while watering the flowers. Let’s take a look…

Incoming!!!! Just recently I’ve seen a few honey bees on our flowers. But we don’t see them often, I guess they have bigger and better places to work than the few flowers we have on our patio. When I do see a honey bee it’s often after I water and they seem just as interested in the water as they do any flower. See her here on the wet soil? 

Now these guys I see a lot…

The big ol’ bumble bee. Significantly larger than the honey bee and much buzzier. I’m not such a fan of these big bees. 

There’s also this one…

Kinda looks like a honey bee but it’s not. This one is significantly smaller and you can see here the comparison…

The honey bee is significantly larger than this other bee. But goodness look at those packs of pollen on the little bees back legs…bitty bee but a big worker!!!

While there might be many bees that belong to the genus Apis the specific species of mellifera is my favorite! 

As for our bees they hopefully are doing well. There isn’t much management happening right now as we are simply awaiting the honey harvest. Hopefully that will take place in another few weeks. From there we’ll have some fall management to prepare for winter. What a success it would be to be able to harvest honey AND have our hives survive winter. Fingers crossed!!!

– Worker Bee 2021