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| A newly emerged Apis dorsata on my thumb. Just like all honey bees, newly emerged bees do not sting and cannot fly. Viewed: 4779 times. |
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| Because the giant honey bees nest in the open, they have many more guard bees compared to A. mellifera, which just needs 20-100 guards near the entrance. Here you see guard bees around the areas of the nest that is in contact of the roof of the eaves. Viewed: 3684 times. |
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| A giant honey bee nest on the eaves of a library (about 30 ft from ground). the nest is about 6 ft across. Someone has knocked a hole with a rock the day before, trying to steal some honey. Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, China. April 2002. Viewed: 5842 times. |
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| A newly emerged Apis dorsata worker. Notice the small mite on the thorax -- this is the notorious 'lesser' mite (Tropilelaeps clarae), a large pest in China and other Asian countries on Apis mellifera. It jumped host from dorsata to mellifera there. * Viewed: 3765 times. |
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| A drone of Apis dorsata emerging from his cell. Unlike in our bees, where the drone cell is much larger than worker's, in this bee there is no difference between the two! Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, China. April 10, 2002. Viewed: 3289 times. |
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| A silk-cotton tree (Bombax ceiba, Bombacaceae) with about 40-50 nests of giant honey bees. Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, China. April 2002. Viewed: 4367 times. |
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| A closeup of an old giant honey bee (Apis dorsata). While their body has similar diameters as mellifera (the average worker cell size is 5.4 mm across), they body is longer and wings has a smoky looking. Bands on abdomen gets darker as workers age. Viewed: 4306 times. |
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| dorsata-newbee Viewed: 2929 times. |
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| It seems that as the workers get larger, the difference in size between workers and drones gets smaller. Here you see the drone (top) is only 1 mm longer than the worker, in Apis dorsata (the giant honey bee). There is also no cell size differences between worker and drone cells!
In the dwarf honey bees (A. florea and andreniformis), the difference between the two is the largest, both in terms of body size and cell size.Viewed: 3577 times. |
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| Change in appearances in Apis dorsata worker, from pupa to adult. Viewed: 3945 times. |
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Album: Bees @ Home 
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