Abstract <p>The best-known members of the family Apidae are the European honey bee, <i>Apis</i> <i>mellifera</i> and the Asian bee, <i>Apis cerana</i>. Compared to the European honey bee, <i>A. cerana</i> is somewhat smaller in size, although similar in appearance. The Asian bee is native to temperate and tropical Asia, being found from Afghanistan to the Korean Peninsula and Japan, in the Himalayan foothills in the north, as well as in eastern Russia and to the south through Indonesia. Understanding the adaptation of honey bees to changing environments is the basic issue of the evolutionary biology and is important for species conservation against climate change. In the present study, five exons (3–7) of the vitellogenin <i>vtg</i> gene were sequenced to analyze the taxonomic relationships of individual populations and subspecies of <i>A. cerana</i>. Our previous studies of defensin 1 and 2 genes (<i>def1</i> and <i>def2</i>) revealed the distinctness of <i>A. cerana</i> population from Vietnam, probably due to the geographic isolation of this population. In the present study, this suggestion is supported based on the characterization of a polymorphism in the <i>vtg</i> gene, which encodes a protein involved in the genetic control of immunity, oogenesis, and lifespan. Differences in the protein structure may have selective importance for local populations. The <i>vtg</i> gene is also involved in the adaptation of honey bees to cold climate. It is suggested that the survival of long-lived generations of worker bees in winter is associated, among other things, with the increased ability to accumulate vitellogenin, which may determine differences in the protein structure in honey bees living in different conditions.</p>