Talk:Apis mellifera scutellata

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 January 2019 and 17 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Munzirbhatt.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 19:59, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

African/africanized

I turned the last two paragraphs into one, as they were partially redundant and seemed to be referring more to africanized bees than african ones. Michael1115 (talk) 20:22, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I replaced the taxonomy image with an image and description from the "see also" section due to the fact that the original taxonomy image is used both on the Africanized bee page and African bee page. JourneyV (talk) 18:41, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Unclear explanation

The article says "A. m. capensis workers increase in number within a host colony. This leads to the death of the host colony on which they depend. An important factor causing the death of a colony seems to be the dwindling numbers of A. m. scutellata workers that perform foraging duties (A. m. capensis workers are greatly under-represented in the foraging force of an infected colony) owing to death of the queen, and, before queen death, competition for egg laying between A. m. capensis workers and the queen. When the colony dies, the capensis females will seek out a new host colony."

It is not clear what are the mechanics behind the collapse of the host colony. It is not clear why workers are under-represented and why the queen should die.

ICE77 (talk) 17:29, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

New sections

Hi all- I added the section on foraging behavior and its evolution. Please tell me what you think! I am an undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis and I am editing this for a behavioral ecology Wikipedia class. Amruthapk (talk) 00:48, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Peer Review

• italicize species name
• In ‘Energetic benefits of warm nectar,’ the sentence, “The bumblebee’s ability to differentiate flower warmth by color and target warmer flowers is one noted precedent for nectar temperature selection in honeybees,” can be included in paragrpahs above
• In the last paragraph under “Significance of foraging behavior in worker bees,” the very first part seems unnatural. Is using a semi-colon correct?
• Is the information first paragraph in ‘evolution’ all from one source?
• In the first paragraph under ‘Evolution,’ period should be outside the parenthesis.
• Put access dates and url to the page that the paper you cited came from.
• Write something in the talk page so people know what you changed and when

Overall, the article is easy to understand. Pocketkings (talk) 08:07, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Peer Review: First of all, I found the foraging sections very informative! Great job on research! I have a few suggestions for the editor:

• Try to keep the language a little more simple - there are several sentences that I had to re-read a few times because of their length and use of scientific language. I think it's important to use words that are precise, but this article for the most part should be understandable to non-biology majors.
• Along with the above suggestion, I would define certain terms like "thermoregulatory imbalance", "crop loads", "fitness advantage", and "quantitative trait loci."
• The article has both a section of evolution under foraging and then just a section on evolution. It might be best to consolidate the two, or rename one of them, since they do discuss different evolutionary implications.
• It may be worth adding sections about the eusociality of bees, the caste system and colony population structure.

I also agree with the comments from the other peer editor - I did change all the species names to italics, but do remember to do this in the future. Keep up the good work, and I hope my comments help! Blubird25 (talk) 02:08, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Round Two

• The intro is a bit wordy; some of the sentences can be more concise.
• "Character" seems to be a poor heading, and should not be first. This section also needs more citations. It's also rather disjointed (half on stings, half on honey production)
• I'm not sure that you need all the in text citations under "Energetic Benefits of Warm Nectar," since they're all from the same source. This occurs elsewhere. I find them to get in the way more than they help.
• Only the first word of a header and proper nouns within the header should be capitalized
• Use active voice!
• Many of your sentences can be more concise
• Evolution section needs citations
• I reduced the bulk in some very wordy sentences, but there's still a lot to be done.
• Call the animal the same thing throughout the article. In "Parasitization," you refer to the animal by an abbreviated name which does not appear elsewhere.
• Overall, I think this article has a large number of minor issues which you can easily fix. I do not believe the article has any major flaws.

Gharris7 (talk) 03:07, 1 November 2013 (UTC)Gharris7

Change of title to South Eastern African Honey bee

The title of this entry East African lowland honey bee is incorrect. There are a number of common names for Apis mellifera scutellata including African honey bee (too general), and the Savanna honey bee. A common name that reflects its distribution would be "South Easten African Honey Bee".

The current title is inaccurate since A. m. scutellata is not confined to East Africa nor is necessarily a lowland honey bee. The East Afrcian lowland honey bee is Apsi mellifera littoria! Maxridge (talk) 09:39, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

Requested move 17 August 2025

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Moved to alternate proposal: Apis mellifera scutellata (closed by non-admin page mover) Jeffrey34555 (talk) 17:32, 13 September 2025 (UTC)

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East African lowland honey bee → Savanna honey bee – The current title is incorrect since A. m. scutellata is not confined to East Africa and is not necessarily a lowland bee. Maxridge (talk) 11:13, 26 June 2025 (UTC) This is a contested technical request (permalink). Maxridge (talk) 07:48, 17 August 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. Jeffrey34555 (talk) 06:03, 24 August 2025 (UTC) — Relisting.  ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 07:33, 31 August 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPath^talk 05:34, 8 September 2025 (UTC) Apis mellifera scutellata has never been referred to as the East African lowland bee. It is more commonly referred to as the Savanna honey bee.I am modifying my proposal to make use of this name. See Mumoki et al., Annals of the Entomological Soceity of American 114: 219-228 (2021).— Preceding unsigned comment added by Maxridge (talk • contribs) 07:48, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

If there is doubt about the common name, it should be at Apis mellifera scutellata. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 14:51, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

Move to Apis mellifera scutellata. The spelling "savanna honey bee" doesn't appear to be commonly used at all (as opposed to "savannah honey bee"). "East African lowland honeybee" is used some (e.g. ), but less than "savannah honey bee". The most commonly used vernacular name appears to be "African honey bee", but this is not the only honey bee subspecies from Africa, and that name could also be confused with Africanized bee (a.k.a. "killer bee", which are hybrids with Apis mellifera scutellata in their parentage). Most honey bee subspecies are already using scientific name as titles (see Category:Apis (genus)). Use the scientific name for this one as well, and I'd suggest making African bee into a disambiguation page to include the African subspecies and "killer bees". Plantdrew (talk) 20:28, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Insects/Hymenoptera task force, WikiProject Insects, and WikiProject Agriculture have been notified of this discussion. TarnishedPath^talk 05:35, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

• Per Plantdrew, let's Move to Apis mellifera scutellata. The current name is no good, and the alternatives are ambiguous or uncommon also, so Latin it should be. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:58, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.