{"id":99207,"date":"2026-04-20T14:30:40","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T09:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=99207"},"modified":"2026-04-20T14:31:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T09:01:07","slug":"apis-mellifera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/apis-mellifera\/","title":{"rendered":"Apis mellifera"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Apis mellifera Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By successfully demonstrating that Apis mellifera can survive sub-zero temperatures, the CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (IIIM) Pulwama recently introduced a breakthrough likely to help beekeepers avoid the costly practice of migrating their hives to the plains during winter.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Apis mellifera<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Apis mellifera, the <\/span><b>Western bee or European bee<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, is the <\/span><b>most common species of honey bee<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> worldwide.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is the <\/span><b>most widely distributed<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and<\/span><b> well-known domesticated species of insect<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the world.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is commercially <\/span><b>exploited for products<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> such as <\/span><b>honey, wax, and propolis,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and it is <\/span><b>used for pollination<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of multiple crops.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Apis mellifera <\/b><b>Habitat and Distribution<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>native <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to <\/span><b>Europe, Western Asia, and Africa.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Human introduction<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of Apis mellifera t<\/span><b>o other continents started in the 17th century, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and now they are <\/span><b>found all around the world,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> including East Asia, Australia, and North and South America.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They prefer <\/span><b>habitats <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">that have an <\/span><b>abundant supply of suitable flowering plants, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">such as meadows, open wooded areas, and gardens.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They can <\/span><b>survive in grasslands, deserts, and wetlands <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">if there is sufficient water, food, and shelter.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They <\/span><b>need cavities<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (e.g. in hollow trees) <\/span><b>to nest in.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Apis mellifera <\/b><b>Features<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are generally <\/span><b>reddish brown to yellow in color<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, with <\/span><b>black bands<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>orange-yellow rings on their abdomens.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They have<\/span><b> two pairs of wings <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and a slender waist.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Thoraxes and abdomens<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are <\/span><b>covered with forked or frayed hairs<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, though less so on the abdomen.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Like all honey bees, the western honey bee is <\/span><b>eusocial<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,<\/span><b> creating colonies <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">with a <\/span><b>single fertile female<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (or &#8220;<\/span><b>queen<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;), many <\/span><b>normally non-reproductive females <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">or &#8220;<\/span><b>workers<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,&#8221; and a small proportion of <\/span><b>fertile males or &#8220;drones.&#8221;<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Individual colonies can house tens of thousands of bees.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Workers and queens possess stingers spiked with venom<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> coming from abdominal glands.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The<\/span><b> stinger is barbed in workers<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>tears away<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> from their bodies <\/span><b>after stinging. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The queen\u2019s stinger is smooth.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Its <\/span><b>nest <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">has a <\/span><b>sophisticated architecture<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> made of <\/span><b>multiple combs<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> constructed from beeswax and, under natural conditions, built inside a protective cavity.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source<\/b><strong>:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/energy-and-environment\/in-a-first-migratory-honey-bees-get-warm-womb-to-stay-back-in-winters-in-kashmir\/article70877603.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>TH<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Apis mellifera is the most widely distributed and well-known domesticated species of insect in the world. Read more about Apis mellifera, Habitat and Distribution, Features, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":99193,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6977,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-99207","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-apis-mellifera","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99207"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99253,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99207\/revisions\/99253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}