Africanized honey bees (also spelled Africanised honey bees), known colloquially as "killer bees", are a hybrid of the Western honey bee species, ("Apis mellifera"), produced originally by cross-breeding of the African honey bee ("A. m. scutellata"), with various European honey bees such as the Italian bee "A. m. ligustica" and the Iberian bee "A. m. iberiensis".