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Bees are generally better at the task than other pollinating insects such as beetles, flies, butterflies and pollen wasps. The appearance of such floral specialists is believed to have driven the adaptive radiation of the angiosperms, and, in turn, the bees themselves. Bees, like ants, evolved from wasps.

Current Population Trend: Unknown. Honeybee hives have long provided humans with honey and beeswax. Such commercial uses have spawned a large beekeeping industry, though many species still occur ...

Four bee families (Andrenidae, Colletidae, Halictidae, and Apidae) contain some species that are crepuscular. Most are tropical or subtropical, but some live in arid regions at higher latitudes. These bees have greatly enlarged ocelli, which are extremely sensitive to light and dark, though incapable of forming images. Some have refracting superposition compound eyes: these combine the output of many elements of their compound eyes to provide enough light for each retinal photoreceptor.

Bees are small flying insects, common in summer gardens flying from flower to flower. Most bee species are recognizable by their striped fuzzy bodies—often with black and yellow or orange markings. There are 20,000 species of bees, and the most common – the Western honey bee (Apis mellifera) – is famous for producing honey.

bumblebee, (tribe Bombini), also spelled bumble bee, also called humble-bee, common name for any member of the insect tribe Bombini (family Apidae, order Hymenoptera). These bees occur over much of the world but are most common in temperate climates.

The Megachilidae family comprises around 3,000 species of mostly solitary bees. The largest known bee (Megachile pluto, or Wallace’s Giant Bee) is part of this family, as are leafcutter bees, mason bees, and carder bees. The Andrenidae family has about 2,700 different species of small, solitary, ground-nesting bees commonly known as mining bees.

One key difference is that bees have four wings and flies have two. Another is that hoverflies and bees have very different eye structures. Flies, for instance, have huge eyes on either side of ...

The team's bee brick is a "fit and forget" component of construction. There is no ongoing maintenance and the solitary bees will find the bricks, use them to nest and represent no threat to the ...