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 & 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)