Discovery of the Himalayan giant honey bee, Apis laboriosa, in Thailand: a major range extension

Abstract

We located nesting Himalayan giant honey bees, Apis laboriosa, in Thailand for the first time, at the summit of Doi Pha Hom Pok, Chiang Mai Province. Preliminary identification of the bees based on the color of thoracic hairs and the abdomen was confirmed by morphological, morphometric, and genetic analyses. Additionally, those analyses confirmed two recent community science observations posted to iNaturalist. We review morphological characters that enable identification of A. laboriosa. Our discovery extends the range of the species southward ca. 240 km from previously documented locations in southern Yunnan Province, China. This discovery suggests that A. laboriosa is likely to occur in other highland regions of northern Thailand, western Laos, and the Shan Hills of eastern Myanmar.