Honey Bee, Apis mellifera, Queen
Apis mellifera, Queen, side view. Collected by Tim McMahon from a colony in Talbot County, while slightly gummy as Honeybees are want to be, this series shows the longer abdomen, the odd curly dark hairs on top of the head and the broad hind tibia, but lacking the hairs and pollen basket that the workers western honey bee or European honey bee (Apis mellifera) is a species of honey bee. It has a defined social caste system and complex communication behaviors, such as intricate dance routines to indicate food availability. It is frequently maintained by beekeepers for its honey product. This species is widely distributed and an important pollinator for agriculture, though it is currently threatened by colony collapse disorder. It is also an important organism for scientific studies on social insects, especially as it now has a fully sequenced genome. Photographed in Talbot County, Maryland, September 30, 2013.
Size: 4350px × 3101px
Photo credit: © Photo Researchers / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 2010s, 2013, 21st, animal, apidae, apis, arthropod, arthropoda, bearing, bee, century, close-, european, fauna, female, honey, honey-bearing, honeybee, hymenoptera, insect, insecta, inventory, lab, macro, macrography, macrophotography, mellifera, monitoring, photography, photomacrography, queen, side, sp., usgs, view, western
