Bee

Lore & Background

Their immediate ancestors were stinging wasps in the family Ammoplanidae, which were predators of other insects. The switch from insect prey to pollen may have resulted from consuming prey insects that were flower visitors and partially covered with pollen. By the end of the Cretaceous, all modern bee families had already diverged from one another, with the Melittidae, Apidae, and Megachilidae evolving before the breakup of West Gondwana. Most bee species are solitary, with over 90% living alone, including mason bees, carpenter bees, leafcutter bees, and sweat bees. Social species include honey bees, bumblebees, and stingless bees. Bees range in size from tiny stingless bee workers less than 2 millimeters long to the leafcutter bee Megachile pluto, whose females can reach 39 millimeters. Many bees are brightly colored with contrasting bands of yellow, orange, or red against black, serving as aposematic signals to warn predators. Human beekeeping, or apiculture (meliponiculture for stingless bees), has been practiced for millennia, since at least the times of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece. In Mesoamerica, the Maya have practiced large-scale intensive meliponiculture since pre-Columbian times. Bees have appeared in mythology and folklore through all phases of art and literature, though primarily focused in the Northern Hemisphere where beekeeping is more common.

Reader's Guide

Bees are of immense ecological and agricultural significance as pollinators. Pollination management via bees is important both ecologically and agriculturally, and the decline in wild bee populations has increased the demand and value of domesticated pollination by commercially managed hives of honey bees. Unlike wasps and ants, which are carnivorous or omnivorous, bees are exclusively herbivorous, feeding on nectar for energy and pollen for protein and nutrients for their larvae. They are found in every habitat on the planet that contains insect-pollinated flowering plants. The most common bees in the Northern Hemisphere are Halictidae, or sweat bees, though they are small and often mistaken for wasps or flies. Vertebrate predators of bees include primates and birds such as bee-eaters; insect predators include beewolves and dragonflies. Bees have a pair of large compound eyes, three simple eyes, geniculate antennae, mouthparts adapted for chewing and sucking, and a thorax with three segments each bearing legs and membranous wings. The abdomen has nine segments, with the hindermost three modified into a sting. Bees differ from wasps by having branched or plume-like setae, combs on the forelimbs for cleaning antennae, and small anatomical differences in limb structure and wing venation.

Did You Know?

• The largest bee species is Megachile pluto, with females up to 39 mm long.
• Bees are found on every continent except Antarctica.
• The oldest non-compression bee fossil is Cretotrigona prisca, about 70 million years old.