BEE

Bumblebee (Bombus) any member of some 20,000 species of insects of the superfamily Apoidea (order Hymenoptera). In addition to the familiar honeybee (Apis) and bumblebee (Bombus [see photograph] and Psithyrus), thousands of more wasplike and flylike bees are included in the Apoidea. Adults range in size from about 2 mm to 4 cm (about 0.08-1.6 inch). Bees are closely related to certain types of wasps; the principal biological difference between bees and wasps is that bees (except for parasitic bees) provide their young with a mixture of pollen and honey, whereas wasps feed their young prepared animal food or provision their nests with insects or spiders. Associated with this difference in food preference are certain structural differences; whereas wasps are covered with unbranched hairs, bees have at least a few branched or feathered hairs to which pollen often clings. Bees are entirely dependent on flowers for food, which consists of pollen and nectar, the latter sometimes modified and stored as honey. There is no doubt that bees and the flowers that they pollinate evolved simultaneously. As bees go from flower to flower gathering pollen, they lose small quantities. This loss of pollen is significant, for it often results in cross-pollination of plants. The practical value of bees as pollinators is enormously greater than the value of their honey and wax production. Male bees are usually short-lived and never collect pollen, nor have they other responsibilities in connection with providing for the young. Female bees do all the work of nest making and provisioning and usually have special anatomical structures that assist them in carrying pollen. Most bees are polylectic; that is, they gather pollen from a wide variety of flowers. Some bees, however, collect pollen only from flowers of certain families, others from flowers of certain colours. Oligolectic bees gather pollen from only a few related kinds of flowers. The mouth parts of bees, like the pollen-collecting and pollen-carrying devices, seem to be adapted to different flowers. Most of the Apoidea are solitary, or nonsocial, in habit-i.e., they do not live in colonies; each female makes her own nest (usually a burrow in the ground) and provisions it. Among such bees there are no castes. Some solitary bees make chimneys or turrets at the nest entrance, others nest in wood or in the pith of twigs or canes. Most solitary bees are short-lived as adults. Some species may be in flight only a few weeks of the year, having spent the rest of the year in their cells as eggs, larvae, pupae, and young adults. Solitary bees provide food for the larvae when the cells are sealed; social bees, such as the bumblebee and the honeybee, feed their young progressively. For the life cycle of social bees, see bumblebee; honeybee. The Apoidea includes eight families: Colletidae, which are primitive wasplike bees consisting of five or six subfamilies, about 45 genera, and some 3,000 species; Andrenidae, which are medium-sized solitary mining bees, including some parasitic species; Halictidae (mining, or burrowing, bees), the best-known of which is Dialictus zephyrus, one of many so-called sweat bees, which are attracted to perspiration; Oxaeidae, large, fast-flying bees that bear some anatomical resemblance to Andrenidae; Melittidae, bees that mark a transitional form between the lower and the higher bees; Megachilidae (leaf-cutting and mason bees), noted for their elaborate nest structures; Anthophoridae (including carpenter bees and cuckoo bees), a large family of three subfamilies that were once considered to be subfamilies of Apidae; and Apidae (bumblebees, honeybees, and digger, or mining, bees). The so-called killer bee is a subspecies of African honeybee that was accidentally released in Brazil in 1957 during an attempt to produce a productive tropical hybrid. Moving northward some 200 to 300 miles (320 to 480 km) per year, the bees had reached Mexico in the 1980s. They have been considered responsible for hundreds of deaths. The African honeybee is smaller and much less effective in pollination of plants than its European counterpart. Although it is not more venomous than the European form, it reacts much more quickly, attacks in number, pursues for a longer time, and takes longer to calm down.