Hi all, 
I am working on an article about the origin of the honey bee species, so I don't want to tip my hand too much, but I will say the statement that "the honey bee is tropical" is no longer universally accepted. The behavior of tropical and temperate bees is radically different, in any case. Tropical bees tend to abscond & migrate in unfavorable conditions, whereas the temperate bee stores large reserves and hunkers down for the long haul, whether it is prolonged cold or drought.

However, the key fact is that the oldest honey bee fossils are located in Europe. It may have been tropical at the time these bees were extant, and populations that moved out of Europe may have remained adapted to tropical conditions, but there is plenty of evidence that the European honey bee evolved in a temperate climate, and became a temperate bee. 

The best examples of cold climate bees are A. m. mellifera, ligustica, and carnica. The first was native in northern Europe, the second two were localized in the Alps. These regions are cold climate refuges where tropical bees simply could not survive. Examples of drought resistant bees exist throughout the mediterranean and Northern Africa. All of these bees tend to reduce the size of the cluster in order to survive, whereas tropical bees tend to migrate to better resources. 

Pete

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