Giant Honey Bee

• When a predator approaches, the workers mount a coordinated defence known as shimmering, a synchronised wave that ripples across the whole comb.
• It feeds on nectar and pollen from a wide range of tropical flowers.
• The whole colony moves on when conditions change, rather than leaving daughter queens behind.
• It does not use cavities: it hangs a single exposed comb, which can measure more than a metre and house tens of thousands of workers.
• It does the Mexican wave. Faced with a wasp or a bird, the workers on the comb's surface raise their abdomens in sequence, producing a wave that sweeps across the whole colony. That rippling flash disorients predators and makes them give up; the phenomenon is called shimmering.
• It is migratory: the whole colony abandons the comb and travels hundreds of kilometres following the blooms, and often returns to the very same site the next season.
• It is highly defensive and its sting is painful; wild-honey gatherers in Nepal and India climb cliffs to harvest its combs, a traditional practice documented for centuries.
• Its honey is gathered from the wild and is the basis of traditional beekeeping across much of South-East Asia.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (insect)

Habitat and environment

Tropical forest and mountain country of South and South-East Asia, with exposed nests on high branches or cliffs

Birth weight

Egg laid in the exposed comb

Size at birth

A larva fed inside the comb cell

Gestation / incubation

Complete egg-larva-pupa-adult development over several weeks

Litter / clutch size

The queen lays several eggs a day; the whole colony migrates rather than leaving daughter queens behind

Sources consulted: University of Florida Entomology; The Holy Habibee; ScienceDirect Topics; Plantiary; Entomologically.com; arXiv (Varroa epidemiology study)