Skip to main content

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.

Dlium Asian honey bee (Apis cerana)


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

Popular Posts

Kunu buti (Mesosphaerum suaveolens)

Kunu buti ( Mesosphaerum suaveolens ) is a species of plant in the Lamiaceae family. It is an erect, herbaceous annual, growing up to 1.5 meters tall. Its cylindrical, rough, brown or green stem is hairy and white. It grows on forest floors, bushes, agricultural fields, and roadsides. Its roots are fibrous and brownish-yellow. M. suaveolens has single, opposite leaves, stalks 2-5 cm long and hairy. The leaf blades are green, hairy, oval, with pointed tips, blunt bases, serrated edges, up to 6 cm long, up to 5 cm wide, and pinnate veins. The flowers are compound, axillary, in clusters, perfect, and bisexual. The petals are attached, forming a tube, each tip elongated like a spine, soft, 3-10 mm long, and green. The corolla is attached, asymmetrically detached, 1-2 cm long, and purple. The fruit is single, hard, capsule-shaped, hairy on the surface, and green or brown in color. The seeds are round, small and blackish brown in color. TAXON Kingdom: Plantae Phylum: Tracheophyta Subphyl...

Asian foxtail (Uraria crinita)

Asian foxtail or cat's tail bean ( Uraria crinita ) is a species of plant in Fabaceae, a perennial, upright shrub with woody stems at least at the base, up to 2 meters high in forests, agricultural land, waterways, used as a medicinal herb, green manure and sometimes planted in the garden as an ornamental plant. U. crinita has elongated leaves, rounded base, pointed tip, a bone in the middle with several pinnate veins, rough surface, dark green with white spots. Petiole short or less than 0.5 cm and brownish red. Compound flower in spike shape, purple and white triangular crown. Long flower stalk, erect, 15-20 cm long and only at the end of the flower. The crown slowly falls off and leaves behind a stalk that is shaped like coir or light yellow pads. Asian foxtail grows in dry grasslands, open forests, trash cans, roadsides, sandy areas and sometimes in deciduous forests, elevations of 0-1500 meters and does not grow in waterlogged places. The different parts are often used in t...

Brazilian vervain (Verbena brasiliensis)

Brazilian vervain ( Verbena brasiliensis ) is a species of plant in the Verbenaceae, an annual shrub with erect stems, up to 1 meter high, triangular or semi-spherical in shape with sharp corners, green, white-haired, lower branches in an opposite arrangement, branches above grows in an irregular formation. V. brasiliensis has elongated leaves, up to 20 cm long, up to 4 cm wide, sharp tip, deeply serrated or flat margins, dark green in color, a main vein in the middle and whitish in color, several minor veins laterally, rough and stiff surface. Inflorescences in panicles at the end of a long stalk up to 5 cm long. The flower petals are 3 mm long, 5 lobed and tubular in shape. The corolla is formed from fused petals and spreads open at the tip, only slightly longer than the calyx. Flowers have reproductive organs of both sexes. Superior and bicarpellary ovaries. The fruit is a schizocarp or dried fruit that splits when ripe. Wrapped in petals. Nutlets are triangular in cross-sec...