Anthony P. Solli
Orders and families of Bees: (Refer to chart)
The place of bees in time: Fossils of all living families of the Hymenoptera are found in the Cenozoic era, tertiary period.
Bees (Apoidea)
Bees are characterized by their dense coating of plumose and the enlargement of the first or basal joint of the hind tars). In many bees this joint has rows of comblike hairs which are used for gathering pollen. Moistened pollen is packed between marginal rows of bristles on the outside of the hind tibiae and carried back to the nest. Pollen is transferred from the pollen brush to the pollen basket by rubbing the two hind legs together, scraping the grains from the tarsus of one leg, and forcing them into the basket on the tibia of the opposite leg. The scraping is done by the pollen comb, a row of stiff bristles located at the end of the tibia on the inside; the pollen is forced through a gap between the tibia and tarsus, into the concave pollen basket on the outside of the tibia. The honey stomach at the anterior end of the alimentary tract is used to store nectar and carry it to the nest, where it is manipulated and stored in cells as honey. Flowers provide their basic food, and, for many species’ a mating site and place for sleeping. The food of adult bees is largely nectar (which is mostly carbohydrate), with some pollen; the larval food is largely pollen (which is rich in protein), usually mixed with some nectar. “Constancy in the collection of pollen is a characteristic of bees in general” (Linsley). Many species consistently collect pollen from a single species or a group of related species; this is a characteristic of the great majority of solitary bees.
It has been estimated that in total species bees constitute about 25 percent of the Hymenoptera. Most wild bees are solitary and nest in the soil.
There are three kinds of social bees: The bumblebee, honeybee, and stingless bees. They are generally grouped into one family, the Apidae.
Stingless bees are strictly tropical and not found north of Mexico. Like the honeybee, they establish new colonies by swarming, but with the difference that new queens leave the nest to find a new colony rather than the mother queen. Though stingless, swarms of these bees can annoy humans, since they are sticky and can bite slightly.
The common bumblebees (balteatus) belong mostly to the genus
Bombus
and are usually black and yellow. Colonies breakup in the fall and only the young queens, now mated, remain to hibernate; all others perish. In the spring, after emerging from hibernating quarters in the soil or litter, the queen looks for a place to nest, which may be on or below the ground surface, under rocks, in a clump of grass, the abandoned nest of a mouse or bird, and makes preparations for her first brood. Egg cells are constructed, usually of pollen in the case of the first brood, and one egg is laid in each. One or more cups are fashioned of pollen and wax and filled with honey before the young arrive. There are three distinct castes among social bees: The fertile female (queen), the infertile female (worker), and the drone (male).
After the first brood arrives, commonly all workers, the queen confines herself to egglaying while her daughters forage and enlarge the nest, constructing brood cells, building and storing honey and pollen pots, caring for the young. Brood cells are not used again, but cocoons are used for storage of honey and pollen after undergoing alterations. In some colonies the second brood is all male and the third brood is female. Workers of the later broods become progressively larger. The queens and males usually leave the nest and fly off to mate. Males are often seen flying about the entrance at this time, waiting for the young queens to come out.
Bumblebee colonies are never large; probably they average less than 200 individuals and seldom contain more than a few hundred.
BumbleBee (Bombus fraternus)
Unlike the honeybee, bumblebees have one or two spurs on the hind tibia. Next to the Pennsylvanian bumblebee, this is the most common eastern species.
Black, with the thorax anterior portion above and on sides yellow. Broad black band between the wings. Abdomen with two basal segments above yellow. Wings blackviolaceous, darker toward the bases. Length is .85 1” (queens), .5.9” (males), and .5.85” (workers).
Pennsylvanian (American) BumbleBee (Bombus americanorum)
Black with front of head clothed with black pile. Males somewhat variable, with greater part of abdomen above yellow and apex reddish brown. Females with front of abdomen yellow, the remainder black. Length is .7.9” (queens), .55.9” (males), and .5.7” (workers), They visit a wide variety of flowers and are usually found in open grasslands. Easily irritated, the workers often pursue an intruder. Their sting is painful to sensitive persons.
Blackfaced BumbleBee (Bombus californicus)
Head entirely black, with front of thorax and usually dorsum of only the fourth abdominal segment yellow. Hairs moderately long and coarse. Length is .6 .9” (queens), .5.65” (males), and .35.6” (workers). A longtongued species very valuable as a pollinator of red clover.
Yellowfaced BumbleBee (Bombus vosnesenskii)
It is black, with face, top of head, pronotum, mesonotum in front of wings, and dorsum of fourth abdominal segment yellow. Hairs are dense, short and fine. Length is .4.8” long.
Yellow BumbleBee (Bombus fervidus)
Black with most of thorax and dorsum of first abdominal segments yellow. Hairs dense, coarse and medium in length. Often confused with the Pennsylvanian bumble bee. Length is .6.9” (queens), .4.6” (males), and .3 .6” (workers). A longtongued species very valuable as a pollinator of red clover.
Nevada BumbleBee (Bombus nevadensis nevadensis)
Head of female all black, face and occiput of male yellow. Tip of abdomen reddish in the male. Dorsum of thorax and first three abdominal segments of male and female yellow. Hairs dense and short. It is a prolific producer of wax. Length is .7.9” (queens), .5.7” (males), and .6.7” (workers). A longtongued species very valuable as a pollinator of red clover.
Bombus
nevadensis
auricomis
occurs in the eastern states.
Honeybee (Apis mellifera)
Generally some shade of black, gray, or brown, intermixed with yellow. Thorax with dense coat of fine short hairs usually black or paler in color. Abdomen has a thin coat of hairs and often banded with yellow. Unlike bumble bees, the hind tibia is without spurs. Length is .6.8”. There are now several races of Apis
mellifera
in use in North America. The most popular has been the Italian bee, partly because of its brighter color and the greater ease in finding the queen. The queen is black, with scattered yellowish hairs, three to five yellow bands on the abdomen. This is a gentle bee and fairly easy to handle.
The Caucasian bee is mildmannered, though a persistent stinger when aroused, black in color and banded with gray. It has a longer tongue than the other honeybees, and is a heavy producer of propolis (bee glue), a brown resinous substance which serves as a wax cement.
The Carniolan bee is gray and otherwise closely resembles the Caucasian. It is the most gentle of the three races. Carniolans are good combbuilders.
Colonies of honeybees (Apis mellifera) are maintained throughout the winter by their habit of storing honey and clustering. The population of workers in a hive of honeybees may be 20,000 to several times this number. By continued movement of wings, legs, and bodies and the normal process of metabolism, enough heat is generated to keep the compact cluster of individuals alive. They draw closer together as the temperature drops and shift their position to gain access to more stores of honey.
The queen remains within the cluster and by early February begins laying eggs. As the days grow longer and warmer, the cluster expands and drones are produced in preparation for the division of the colony.
The worker broods are kept in the lower central part of the comb, and the pollen stored around them in cells of the same size. The larger cells of the drones are usually in the lower corners of the comb. Honey is stored in cells of the same size toward the back of the hive. Queen cells are large thimbleshaped cells which hang down vertically from the brood comb.
Brood cells are kept open and the larvae fed daily. All get royal jelly, a secretion of the workers, for two days. Workers and drones are then given honey and pollen; white queens remain on the royal jelly diet.
The white grublike larva is full grown and fills its cell in about six days. The cell is capped and the larva pupates after spinning a cocoon. Pupation requires about seven and onehalf days for queens, twelve days for workers, and fourteen and onehalf days for drones.
Swarming by honeybees occurs when new queens appear in the hive, prompting the mother queen to leave and half the colony to follow her. They cluster on a limb or other overhang and remain until the scouting bees find a new home.
In the parent colony the new queens fight one another until only one remains alive. The survivor flies out to mate and returns as the new queen mother.
Young workers first serve as nurses, later produce wax, and after about three weeks of various chores in the hive become foragers. Workers live about six weeks during the peak of activity. The queen is fed royal jelly throughout her life, which lasts a year or more. Drones are fed honey as long as it is plentiful but are ousted from the hive when they become a burden. Their life span is about eight weeks.
The true honeybee, Apis mellifera, a native of Europe, Asia, and Africa, was brought to North America by the early settlers sometime before 1638. For many decades it was important only as a source of honey and beeswax. Because honeybees are proficient pollinators, it has been estimated that 80 percent of our commercial crops today are pollinated by honeybees.
The principal insect enemies of bees among the predatory species are robber flies, assassin bugs, ambush bugs, ants, and sphecid wasps.
Some other families of bees:
Sweat Bee (Halictus farinosus)
Black, with yellow legs, reddish yellow markings on abdomen. Head and thorax with covering of long dense hairs. The tongue is short and pointed. Length is about .45”. They are important pollinators of agricultural crops.
H
.
rubicundis
and
H
.
confusus
are important pollinators of lowbush blueberries and buckwheat.
Alkali Bee (Nomia melanderi)
Black with abdominal segments two to four with broad light emeraldgreen apical bands. Anterior part of mesothorax with pale yellowish brown hairs and black bristles intermixed. It nests in sandy or alkali soil, for which it gets the name “alkali bee”. Length is .5”. They are gregarious and often form huge aggregations of individual nests. It is an important pollinator of alfalfa grown for seed, but has “a rather broad host range for a wild bee,” according to Ribble.
N
.
howardi
is now considered a separate species.
Mining Bee (Andrena carlini)
Black, with dense covering of long hairs on head, thorax, and legs. The tongue is short, pointed. Length is .6”. It is an important pollinator of blueberry, as is
A
.
regularis
.
Mining Bee (Anthophora occidentalis)
Black, clothed with a dense, short yellow pubescence. The tip of abdomen is dusky. Wings are clear with apexes dusky. Male with face on each side lemon yellow and tarsi brownish yellow. Length is .65”
A
.
abrupta
is similar to occidentalis.
Anthophora
is a fairly large genus of “mining bees, which usually occur in large colonies and show a decided preference for sand or clay banks. Adults visit many different kinds of flowers.
Andrenid Bee (Perdita zebrata)
Head and thorax dark metallic blue with white pubescence. Abdomen yellow, segments two to four with brown margins. Legs yellow, marked with black. Wings clear, iridescent, with brownish venation. Length is .2 .25”.
The genus
Perdita
is a large group of small bees confined largely to the western states. Close to 750 species have thus far been described, according to Timberlake. They are remarkable in often restricting their choice of flowers to one or a few closely related species. They are gregarious, nest in the ground, usually in groups with one female to a nest.
Colletid Bee (Colletes compactus)
Black, with dense covering of long hairs on head, thorax, and legs. It has a short, slightly bilobed tongue. Length is .45”. They like asters, goldenrod, sneezeweed,
sunflower and closelyrelated composites.
Colletid Bee (Hylaeus modestus)
Black, side of face lemon yellow in the male, with triangular yellow patch in the female. Wings clear, tinged with brown, venation reddish brown and tibiae yellow basally. Tarsi reddish brown in the female, yellow in the male. Apical margins of abdominal segments brownish. Length is .2.25”.
H
.
affinis
is the same size, black, with yellow markings similar to those of
modestus
.
Mason Bee (Hoplitis producta)
Black, with marginal bands of short white hairs along either side of abdomen. It lacks pollen baskets on the tibiae, carries pollen in “pollen brush” on underside of abdomen. Length is .3”.
Leafcutting Bee (Megachile latimanus)
Black, densely clothed with pale brownish yellow pubescence, faint white apical bands on abdominal segments two to five. Pollen brush of female on underside of abdominal segments two to five pale red. Length is .5 .6”. _.
perihirta
is very similar, but i6 slightly smaller; pollen brush of female brighter red. The pollen brush of
M
.
dentitarsus
, on segments five and six, is red on apical half only. These above species are the most important pollinators of alfalfa. They are more active than bumblebees and honeybees, and unlike them, consistently trip flowers, which is essential to pollination.
M.
rotundata
, black, with yellowgreen abdominal bands, whitish yellow pollen brush is Eurasian in origin, was accidentally introduced into the eastern states in the 1930’s.
Little Carpenter Bee (Ceratina dupla)
Metallic blue and length is .25”. Lives in sumac and other pithy plants. Adults visit many kinds of flowers in various families.
C
.
acantha
is similar to C. dupla.
Carpenter Bee (Xylocopa virginica)
Black, resembling a bumblebee, except that the abdomen is bare and without conspicuous yellow markings. It lacks pollen baskets on the hind tibiae, a dense brush of hairs serving the purpose. In
Xylocopa
females the antennae have 12 segments, and the hind tibiae have two spurs. The males have 13 segments on their antennae and one spur. Length is .91”. Adults visit a number of flowers.
Mountain Carpenter Bee (Xylocopa tabaniformis orpifex)
Black, male with white or yellow and black hairs on head and prothorax. Length is .5.7”. The Valley Carpenter Bee (X. brasilianorum varipuncta) is larger, iridescent blueblack (female) or yellowish (male).
ORDER AND FAMILIES OF BEES
Order
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Hymenoptera (Bees, Ants, Wasps, Sawflies, Horntails)
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Suborder
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Apocrita (Wasps, Ants, Bees)
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Superfamily
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Apoidea (Bees)
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Family
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Hallctidae (Halictid Bees, Sweat Bees)
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shorttongued bees, have one suture below each antenna.
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Family
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Andrenidae (Andrenid Bees)
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acutetongued bees, have two suturea below each antenna.
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Family
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Colletidae (Colletid Bees)
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obtusetongued bees.
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Family
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Megachilidae (Leafcutting Bees)
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longtongued bees, thickjawed, have one suture below each antenna.
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Family
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Apidae
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Subfamily
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Anthophorinae (Anthophorid Bees)
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flowerloving bees.
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Subfamily
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Xylocopinae (Carpenter Bees)
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Subfamily
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Apinae (Bumble Bees, Honeybees)
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