Workers measure roughly 12–15 millimetres and are brown to black, often with honey-yellow or orange bands on the abdomen. Appearance varies by subspecies: the dark bee of the Alps and northern Europe looks quite different from the pale Italian bee or the smaller African forms.
Its natural range covers Europe, Africa and the Middle East, reaching into Central Asia. People have carried it to the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and East Asia, so today it is found almost everywhere.
It nests in cavities – hollow trees and rock crevices in the wild, hives in the care of beekeepers. Inside it builds several parallel wax combs hanging from above, with hexagonal cells for brood, pollen and honey. A strong colony has tens of thousands of workers in summer and a single queen.
It is famous for its dance 'language': a forager performs a waggle dance on the comb that tells her nestmates the direction and distance of a food source. Foraging trips usually cover a few hundred metres to a few kilometres, occasionally more than ten. In temperate winters the bees form a tight cluster and keep warm on the energy of stored honey.
Most of the world's honey comes from this bee. It has been kept for thousands of years and there are now around a hundred million managed hives worldwide. Besides honey it provides wax and propolis, and it is one of the most important crop pollinators.