Honey Bees
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Pollination Professionals
Honey bees bees appear to have their center of origin
in South and Southeast Asia (including the Philippines), as all the
extant species except Apis mellifera are native to that region. Notably,
living representatives of the earliest lineages to diverge (Apis florea
and Apis andreniformis) have their center of origin there.
The first Apis bees appear in the fossil record at the Eocene-Oligocene
boundary (34 mya), in European deposits. The origin of these prehistoric
honey bees does not necessarily indicate Europe as the place of origin
of the genus, only that the bees were present in Europe by that time.
Few fossil deposits are known from South Asia, the suspected region of
honey bee origin, and fewer still have been thoroughly studied.
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