Asian Honey Bees Biology, Conservation, and Human Interactions

About this book

The familiar European hive bee, Apis mellifera, has long dominated honey bee research. But in the last 15 years, teams in China, Japan, Malaysia, and Thailand began to shift focus to the indigenous Asian honey bees. Benjamin Oldroyd, well known for his work on the genetics and evolution of worker sterility, has teamed with Siriwat Wongsiri, a pioneer of the study of bees in Thailand, to provide a comparative work synthesizing the rapidly expanding Asian honey bee literature. After introducing the species, the authors review evolution and speciation, division of labor, communication, and nest defense. They underscore the pressures colonies face from pathogens, parasites, and predators--including man--and detail the long and amazing history of the honey hunt. This book provides a cornerstone for future investigations on these species, insights into the evolution across species, and a direction for conservation efforts to protect these keystone species of Asia's tropical forests.

Contents

Foreword by Thomas D. Seeley Preface 1. To Be a Honey Bee 2. Introduction to the Species 3. Evolution 4. Speciation and Biogeography 5. Dance Communication and Foraging 6. Reproduction, Swarming, and Migration 7. Worker Sterility, Kin Selection, and Polyandry 8. Nesting Biology and Nest Defense 9. Parasites, Pathogens, Predators, and a Plant 10. Human Interactions 11. Conservation 12. Concluding Remarks Appendix A. A Simple Key to the Workers of the Genus Apis Appendix B. A Simple Key to the Parasitic Mesostigmatan Mites of Asian Honey Bees Appendix C. The Names of the Honey Bee Species in Asian Languages Glossary References Index

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Biography

Benjamin P. Oldroyd is Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Sydney. Siriwat Wongsiri is Professor of Science at Chulalongkorn University (Thailand).