Africanized honey bees (also spelled Africanised honey bees), known colloquially as "killer bees", are a hybrid of the Western honey beespecies, (Apis mellifera), produced originally by cross-breeding of the African honey bee (A. m. scutellata), with various European honey bees such as the Italian bee A. m. ligustica and the Iberian bee A. m. iberiensis.