Western Honey Bee

The western honey bee is the most common of the seven to twelve species of honey bee worldwide and one of the first insects ever domesticated, remaining the primary species kept by beekeepers for both honey production and crop pollination. It is eusocial, forming colonies of tens of thousands of bees around a single fertile queen, many non-reproductive worker females and a smaller number of fertile drone males, with colony activity coordinated through pheromones and the waggle dance. With human assistance it now occupies every continent except Antarctica, though it is threatened by pests and disease, especially the Varroa mite and colony collapse disorder, and was assessed as data deficient on the IUCN Red List as of 2025.