A
honey bee (or
honeybee), in contrast with the
stingless honey bee, is any
bee that is a member of the
genus Apis, primarily distinguished by the production and storage of
honey and the construction of ,
colonial nests from
wax. Honey bees are the only extant members of the
tribe Apini, all in the genus
Apis. Currently, only seven
species of honey bee are recognized, with a total of 44
subspecies, though historically, from six to eleven species have been recognized. Honey bees represent only a small fraction of the roughly 20,000 known species of bees. Some other types of related bees produce and store honey, but only members of the genus
Apis are true honey bees. The study of honey bees is known as
melittology.