Facts about Bees
A very few species of solitary bees are being increasingly cultured for commercial pollination.
Bees are used to advertise many products, particularly honey and foods made with honey, thus being one of the few insects used on advertisements.
The most common type of bee in the Northern Hemisphere are the many species of Halictidae, or sweat bees, though they are small and often mistaken for wasps or flies.
The ancestors of bees are held to have been wasps in the family Crabronidae, and therefore predators of other insects.
Cleptoparasitic bees, commonly called "cuckoo bees" because their behavior is similar to cuckoo birds, occur in several bee families, though the name is technically best applied to the apid subfamily Nomadinae.
Despite the honeybee's painful sting and the typical attitude towards insects as pests, people generally hold bees in high regard.
Bees have antennae almost universally made up of thirteen segments in males and twelve in females, as is typical for the superfamily.
Many bees are opportunistic foragers, and will gather pollen from a variety of plants, but many others are oligolectic, gathering pollen from only one or a few types of plants.
Almost all extant species of bees subsist on nectar and pollen, with nectar serving as a carbohydrate and energy source, and pollen as a source of protein and other nutrients.
Contract pollination has overtaken the role of honey production for beekeepers in many countries, with the honeybees being rented to farmers for pollination purposes.
The orchid bees include a number of primitively eusocial species with similar biology.
Bumblebee queens sometimes seek winter safety in honeybee hives, where they are sometimes found dead in the spring by beekeepers, presumably stung to death by the honeybees.
The appearance of such floral specialists is believed to have driven the adaptive radiation of the angiosperms, and, in turn, the bees themselves.
Solitary bees include such familiar species as the Eastern carpenter bee (Xylocopa virginica), alfalfa leafcutter bee (Megachile rotundata), orchard mason bee (Osmia lignaria), and the hornfaced bee (Osmia cornifrons).
Insecticides used on blooming plants can kill large numbers of bees, both by direct poisoning and by contamination of their food supply.
The true honeybees, genus Apis, have arguably the most complex social behavior among the bees.
Solitary bees are either stingless or very unlikely to sting (only in self defense, if ever).
Bees are extremely important as pollinators in agriculture, especially the domesticated Western honeybee.
The population value of bees depends partly on the individual efficiency of the bees, but also on the population itself.
Bees typically have a long proboscis (a complex "tongue") that enables them to obtain the nectar from flowers.
Most bees are fuzzy and carry an electrostatic charge, thus aiding in the adherence of pollen.
One small subgroup of stingless bees (called "vulture bees") is specialized to feed on carrion, and these are the only bees that do not use plant products as food.
Bees are characterized by sucking and chewing mouth parts, large hind feet, and hair-like extensions on the head and thorax.
Bumblebee colonies typically have from 50 to 200 bees at peak population, which occurs in mid to late summer.
The queen initiates a nest on her own (unlike queens of honeybees and stingless bees, which start nests via swarms in the company of a large worker force).
No known bees are nectar specialists; many oligolectic bees will visit multiple plants for nectar.
Providing nest boxes for solitary bees is increasingly popular for gardeners.
Some solitary bees have very advanced types of pollen carrying structures on their bodies.
Bees are found on every continent except Antarctica, in every habitat on the planet that contains flowering dicotyledons.
A honeybee hive can contain up to 40,000 bees at their annual peak, which occurs in the spring, but usually have fewer.
Many cleptoparasitic bees are closely related to, and resemble, their hosts in looks and size, (i.e., the Bombus subgenus Psithyrus, which are parasitic bumblebees that infiltrate nests of species in other subgenera of Bombus).
Some of the species of sweat bees (family Halictidae) and bumblebees (family Bombidae) are primitively social, with the vast majority in the family Halictidae.
Solitary bees are important pollinators, and pollen is gathered for provisioning the nest with food for their brood.
Sociality, of several different types, is believed to have evolved separately many times within the bees.
Solitary bees are often oligoleges, in that they only gather pollen from one or a few species/genera of plants (unlike honeybees and bumblebees, which are generalists).
Bees gathering nectar may accomplish pollination, but bees that are deliberately gathering pollen are more efficient pollinators.
A small number of plants produce nutritious floral oils rather than pollen, which are gathered and used by oligolectic bees.
The true honeybees, genus Apis, have arguably the most complex social behavior among the bees.
Stingless bees are very diverse in behavior, but all are highly eusocial.
Almost all extant species of bees subsist on nectar and pollen, with nectar serving as a carbohydrate and energy source, and pollen as a source of protein and other nutrients.
Others parasitize bees in different families, like Townsendiella, a nomadine apid, one species of which is a cleptoparasite of the melittid genus Hesperapis, while the other species in the same genus attack halictid bees.
Many other species of bees such as mason bees are increasingly cultured and used to meet the agricultural pollination need.
Africanized bees, also called killer bees, are a hybrid strain of Apis mellifera derived from experiments to cross European and African honeybees by Warwick Estevam Kerr.
Bees, like ants, are considered essentially to be a highly specialized form of wasp.
Bumblebees are bees of the genus Bombus in the family Apidae (Bombus terrestris, B. pratorum, et al.).
Bees may focus on gathering nectar or on gathering pollen, depending on their greater need at the time, especially in social species.
The earliest animal-pollinated flowers were believed to have been pollinated by insects such as beetles, so the syndrome of insect pollination was well established before bees first appeared.
Many bees used in pollination survive in refuge in wild areas away from agricultural spraying, only to be poisoned in massive spray programs for mosquitoes, gypsy moths, or other insect pests.
Females of these bees lack pollen collecting structures (the scopa) and do not construct their own nests.
Certain species of allodapine bees (relatives of carpenter bees) also have primitively eusocial colonies, with unusual levels of interaction between the adult bees and the developing brood.
Yellowjackets and hornets, especially when encountered as flying pests, are often mis-characterized as "bees."
Several queen bees escaped his laboratory in South America and have spread throughout the Americas.
Bees play an important role in pollinating flowering plants, and are the major type of pollinators in ecosystems that contain flowering plants.
Solitary bees create nests in hollow reeds or twigs, holes in wood, or, most commonly, in tunnels in the ground.
Bees also play a major, though not always understood, role in providing food for birds and wildlife.
The short answer is yes, bees are both insects and animals. In fact, all insects are animals, and pretty much anything that's not a plant, fungus, bacterium, virus, or protist is an animal too. ... That leaves plant or animal.Jan 27, 2013
Bees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their role in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the European honey bee, for producing honey and beeswax. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea and are presently considered a clade, called Anthophila.
Young worker bees, sometimes called "nurse bees", clean the hive and feed the larvae. When their royal jelly-producing glands begin to atrophy, they begin building comb cells. They progress to other within-colony tasks as they become older, such as receiving nectar and pollen from foragers, and guarding the hive.
The male bee is unable to sting. It is the male carpenter bee, which is most often noticed. They hover in the vicinity of the nest and will dart after any other flying insect that ventures into their territory. A common behavior of the males is to approach people if they move quickly or wave a hand in the air.
While carpenter bees look like a mostly black version of a bumble bees that's where their similarities end. They are quite different than bumblebees. Yes, they can sting, but only the female can. Their sting should be treated like any other bee sting.Apr 3, 2014
Carpenter bees do not consume wood, but their tunneling can be destructive to softwoods and hardwoods alike. Under normal conditions they are not very destructive; however, if several generations of carpenter bees have been tunneling in the same area, extensive damage is possible.
There are numerous species of carpenter bees that inhabit a broad range of ecosystems from tropical to subtropical to temperate. In the United States carpenters bees can be found across the southern United States from Arizona to Florida and in the eastern United States, north to New York.
Carpenter Bee Signs. Carpenter bees get their name from their ability to drill through wood and nest in it. Their drilling will create a nearly perfect hole approximately 1/2 inch in diameter. You will see round holes and a coarse sawdust-like substance called frass underneath the holes.
Method 2 Preventing Carpenter BeesStuff their hole with steel-wool. ... Stain or paint any outdoor wooden surfaces to discourage bee infestation. ... Spray affected areas with a natural non-synthetic citrus and/or tea tree oil spray. ... Stop the cycle of reproduction. ... Seal off burrows or galleries that have been vacated.
Even though they technically do bore into wood, carpenter bees don't systematically destroy a structure like termites or carpenter ants. However, if the infestation is extensive or has been going on for years, the sheer number of tunnels can cause problems, including: ... Stains: Feces of carpenter bees can stain wood.
They are critical pollinators: they pollinate 70 of the around 100 crop species that feed 90% of the world. Honey bees are responsible for $30 billion a year in crops. That's only the start. We may lose all the plants that bees pollinate, all of the animals that eat those plants and so on up the food chain.May 4, 2014
Bees start making honey, which is their food, by visiting flowers. They collect a sugary juice called nectar from the blossom by sucking it out with their tongues. They store it in what's called their honey stomach, which is different from their food stomach. When they have a full load, they fly back to the hive.Aug 10, 2013