Slightly larger and stockier than its relative the giant honey bee, it is regarded as the largest living honey bee. It differs from the giant honey bee in its dark, almost uniformly coloured abdomen and a thorax clothed in long yellowish hairs that protect it from the cold.
It lives in the mountains of the Himalaya and their eastern continuation: Nepal, Bhutan, northern and north-eastern India, and western Yunnan, where it was first described. Most records come from 1,000–3,000 metres, but it forages on alpine meadows up to about 4,100 metres.
Like the giant honey bee it builds a single open comb, around a metre across. It hangs the comb beneath overhangs on sheer cliffs, often facing south-west, and a single cliff may carry many nests side by side. Honey is stored in the upper corner of the comb.
It moves between altitudes over the year: in summer it occupies cliffs in the subalpine zone at about 2,500–3,500 metres, in autumn it descends, and many colonies spend the coldest months comb-less, clustered in forest. Some colonies at warmer, lower sites, however, stay on their combs through the winter.
In Nepal its honey is gathered by traditional honey hunters, mainly Gurung, twice a year in spring and autumn; they descend on rope ladders and drive the bees off with smoke. Spring honey from rhododendron nectar contains grayanotoxins and is intoxicating – it is sold as 'mad honey'. Overharvesting and the building of roads and dams are reducing bee numbers.