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The Journal of the Royal Institute of Thailand Volume IV - 2012 83  bees in Asia including Thailand. However, like European or Western Honeybee, further research is required in order to make them more productive. Eastern hive bees habitually left their comb for a new one, at least once a year. In China, eastern hive bees are parts of beekeeping industry as well as European honeybees. Since there is a breed selection procedure, Chinese eastern hive bees are able to generate as much honey as 25-30 kg. per comb and their comb leaving behavior is also reduced. The correct process of natural comb collection is to cut only parts that contain honey without having to burn down the whole hive which would kill thousands of bees. A Western/European honeybee ( Apis mellifera ) is larger than an eastern honeybee but smaller than a giant honeybee. This species of bee is imported from a foreign country; therefore, it is sometimes called a foreign bee or an Italian bee since beekeeping business is most prospered in Italy with an oldest history of Italian beekeeping. The beekeeping industry is dated back thousands of years during Roman Era (Crane, 1983, 1990 and Crane and Graham, 1985 Ruttner, 1988). Western honeybees are local honeybees in Europe and Africa. They have similar characteristic as eastern hive bee which is the behavior of building multiple combs in a closed area such as a tree hollow, a stone corner, or a closed building. They were later used in beekeeping industry all over the world as their combs have the most appropriate size to be kept in a standard arti fi cial hive. Moreover, western honeybees generate the most quantity of honey which is 50 kg. per comb. If the honey is collected several times, the quantity can be accumulated to as much as 100 kg. per comb annually. The other reasons that western honeybee is chosen is because this bee is not as aggressive as a giant honeybee and does not leave its comb as often as an eastern hive bee. In Northern Thailand, as many as 200,000 colonies are parts of beekeeping industry. European honeybee keeping can be developed into organic beekeeping if proper education is provided to all beekeepers. This includes teaching them the method know-how that conforms to organic honey standard. Siriwat Wongsiri, Chanpen Chanchoa and Pichai Kongpitak