Japanese honey bee
Amazing fact
Japanese honey bees have slightly different veins in their hind wings from western honey bees.
国土交通省 太田川河川事務所
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
Japanese honey bees have slightly different veins in their hind wings from western honey bees.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Japanese honey bee
- Scientific name
- Apis cerana japonica
- Japanese name
- ニホンミツバチ
- Group
- Insects
- Class
- Insecta
- Order
- Hymenoptera
- Family
- Apidae
- Genus
- Apis
The Japanese honey bee is a subspecies of the Asian honey bee.
A honey bee found on Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu. Adults can be seen from spring to autumn.
Compared with the western honey bee, its whole abdomen is darker, almost black.
In winter it gets through the cold by eating the honey it has stored.
How the Japanese honey bee lives
They feed on pollen and nectar.
まちだエコライフ推進公社Basic data
- Size
- females 17–19 mm, males 15–16 mm, 12–13 mm
- Diet
- Pollen and nectar
- Range
- Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu
Where the Japanese honey bee has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.
Names around the world
- 日本語
- ニホンミツバチ
- Deutsch
- Japanische Honigbiene
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- まちだエコライフ推進公社 — まちだのいきものたち ニホンミツバチChecked: 2026-11-03
- 国土交通省 太田川河川事務所 — 太田川生物誌 セイヨウミツバチChecked: 2026-11-03
We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.
The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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