Image Credit: bathyporeia
Honeybees: (Apidae: tribe Apini: Apis mellifera)
There are several species of the genus Apis, or honeybees. It is an Old World tropical group, with a single African species, probably domesticated by Nubians at least 7,000 years ago and since transported and used commercially for pollination of numerous crops throughout the world. The other species are also heavily exploited by humans in their native areas: Apis florea in India, Apis dorsata in se Asia, and Apis cerana in the Orient. There are numerous genetic races of Apis mellifera that have been developed in separate areas. In parts of the United States with severe winters it is mostly the German race that is used, in milder climates it is generally the Italian race. The Italian race arrived with the Spanish missions but the German race required the invention of the steamboat to be successfully imported.
Competition between honeybees and native bees may have involved serious localized extinctions of similar-sized native species. However, the continued presence of numerous bumble species across the US, indirectly argues that honeybees have not fully usurped the niches of most native bees (and other pollinator guilds).
Image Credit: Eran Finkle