Everyone’s heard the tragic news about bees––they’re disappearing, especially in the Western world, at an alarming rate. However, few know why they should care or what they can do to help. Through this blog, I will identify a few different kinds of bees, what they do for us and the environment, what may be killing them off, and what we can do for them, along with a few other neat pollinator facts.

For this first post, let’s discuss what a bee is and where it comes from.

Bees first evolved in the Cretaceous period, along with the first flowering plants. Before flowers and pollinators, plants spread pollen through the wind, similarly to wheat, rice, and corn today. This method only worked if the same species of plants grew next to one another and even then, much of the pollen produced was wasted. However, a few bugs noticed the nutrition in pollen, which contains both lipids and proteins; thus, a coevolution chain began. Flowers developed brighter colours and attractive smells to beat other flowers for the pollinators’ attention.

Still, there were no bees, only wasps, butterflies and beetles. These insects may have collected pollen during scarce times, but primarily fed their young other captured bugs. One particular family of wasp began feeding its young only pollen, with flower nectar for carbohydrates. From these vegetarian wasps grew the diverse family of bees we have today.

Figure 2 below depicts the scientific taxonomy of Apis mellifera, or the Western Honey bee. This is the most commonly used bee in commercial honey farming and is the most widespread. Written are the more defining features of the bees, as each classification indicates a different aspect of the bee’s evolution, anatomy, life cycle, etc.

The kingdom Animalia is self explanatory, so we’ll start with the phylum. Species defined as Arthropoda have a segmented body and exoskeletons. The subphylum Hexapoda indicates three body regions: a head, thorax, and abdomen with three pairs of legs. Next, the class insecta includes only winged hexapods.

The superorder Holometabola is the first representation of a non-physical characteristic; animals in this group have a three stage life cycle including larva, pupal, and adult. Using a common example, think of butterflies: the caterpillar, chrysalis (during which it does not eat), and adult butterfly. These stages allow the animals to live in variable climates. The order Hymenoptra specifies membranous wings––very thin, light wings separated by veins––and also waspish waists.

Bees live in the suborder Apocrita, along with ants and  wasps. But for comparison, the tree branches off to other suborders, including: Diptera (flies), Lepidoptra (butterflies), and Doleoptera (beetles).

The superfamily Apoidea includes pollen and nectar feeders, or two distinct families: Apidae (bees) and Sphecidae (wasps). The genus Apis contains honey bees, of which there are seven to nine species, depending on who you ask, and mellifera is the most widespread. We’ll talk about different species of bees in a later post.

One final thing, since we’re ending on honey bees. In Anatomy of the Honey Bee (1965), Robert Snodgrass wrote a quote which continues to define how animal names are written. He said, “we have in entomology a rule for insect common names… If the insect is what the name implies, write the two words separately; otherwise run them together. Thus we have such names as house fly…and robber fly contrasted with dragonfly…and butterfly, because the latter are not flies…The honey bee is an insect and is preeminently a bee; ‘honeybee’ is equivalent to ‘Johnsmith’.”

For further reading, information in this came largely from Goulson, Dave. “The Beguiling History of Bees.” Scientific American, Online Excerpt, 2014.