On a podcast episode of Stuff You Should Know, they discussed honey bees. They mentioned that there is mainly one species used for harvesting: apis mellifera. But there are various races of these bees. What defines a race and what distinguishes them as the same species?

Question

On a podcast episode of Stuff You Should Know, they discussed honey bees. They mentioned that there is mainly one species used for harvesting: apis mellifera. But there are various races of these bees. What defines a race and what distinguishes them as the same species?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Race isn’t an exact term, even bee keepers don’t have a consistent meaning, but the best comparison is dogs. all dogs are *Canis lupus familiaris*, a subspecies of wolf. However, he have different breeds that are visiually, behaviorally, and physically different. These breeds can be thought of as “races”. They are all the same species and subspecies, there’s not enough difference to reclassify them. There is enough to distinguish them though