• Apis australis (Kiesenwetter, 1860)
• Apis aenigmaticus (Rayment, 1925)
• Apis. florea (Red Honeybee)
• Apis. dorsata
• Apis. cerana (Eastern Honeybee)
• Apis. cerana javana
• Apis. mellifera (Western Honeybee)
• Apis. mellifera iberiensis
• Apis. mellifera mellifera
• Apis. mellifera carnica
• Apis. mellifera cecropia
• Apis. spp

In 1860, the German entomologist Ernst August Hellmuth von Kiesenwetter published the name Apis australis. The specific epithet "australis" translates from Latin to mean "southern" (von Kiesenwetter, 1860).

In 1925, an Australian entomologist named Tarlton Rayment officially described as a brand new, highly distinct wild honeybee species native to Australia. He named it Apis aenigmaticus (Rayment, 1935).

In the early 2000s, population geneticists (including researchers at the University of Sydney) conducted a comprehensive study of wild honeybee populations across Western Australia. They utilized mitochondrial DNA markers to trace the lineages (mitotypes) of bees including M6: A mitochondrial haplotype belonging explicitly to the Spanish honeybee (Apis mellifera iberiensis) (Franck et al., 2000).

Australian honeybee diversity is richer in the northern parts of the country due to higher rates of migration from Asia, Papua New Guinea, Timor and other pacific regions. These bees exhibit slightly different physical traits (morphometrics) due to regional variation and climatic adaptations to the southern lands.

IUCN guidelines (October 2025): Wild populations of the Western Honey Bee are here defined as self-sustaining groups of free-living colonies. The attribute “self-sustaining” is applied in relation to a ten-year period and refers to the capacity of the free-living cohort (i.e., group of colonies) to persist for at least that duration by maintaining itself through the reproduction of its member colonies, without relying on the immigration of swarms from managed ones (as there is no genetic division among free-living and managed cohorts). The period of ten years is used, as it corresponds to length of three generations (following IUCN guidelines, the average generation length of a Honey Bee colony was calculated as 3.3 years, see Habitats and Ecology section) (Michez et al., 2026).

References:

Engel, M. S. (1999). The taxonomy of recent and fossil honey bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae; Apis). Journal of Hymenoptera Research, 8(2), 165–196. https://dn720002.ca.archive.org/0/items/biostor-28973/biostor-28973.pdf

Chapman, Nadine & Lim, Julianne & Oldroyd, Benjamin. (2008). Population Genetics of Commercial and Feral Honey Bees in Western Australia. Journal of Economic Entomology. 101. 272-277. 10.1603/0022-0493(2008)101[272:PGOCAF]2.0.CO;2.

Michez, D., Boustani, M., Sentil, A., Benrezkallah, J., de Manincor, N., Wood, T. J., Álvarez Fidalgo, P., Aubert, M., Bellotto, V., Biella, P., Bogusch, P., Bosch, J., Brau, T., Browne, K., Carion, F., Castro, L., Cederberg, B., Clay, J., Debont, Thomas., Bila Dubaić, J., ... Ghisbain, G. (2026). European Red List of Bees: Measuring the pulse of European biodiversity. Publications Office of the European Union. https://doi.org/10.2779/521877

Rayment, T. (1935). A cluster of bees: Sixty essays on the life-histories of Australian bees, with specific descriptions of over 100 new species. Endeavour Press.