Bees (Meaning and Explanation)

We explain everything about bees, their habitat, honeycombs, reproduction and other characteristics. Also, differences with wasps.

What are bees?

The bees are a diverse set of flying insects classified zoologically within the clade anthophila (from Greek anthos“flower”, and philos“like”, that is, “flower lovers”). They are among the most common and most ecologically important species in the entire world.

Like their cousins, ants, bees are among the most diverse insects and best adapted to all continents of the world, except Antarctica. Almost 20,000 species are known of them of common traits and habits, the most popular of all being the ordinary bee, Apis melliferawith distinctive black and yellow colors.

The curious social habits of bees and their ability to make honey have been of interest to humans since ancient times. In fact, humanity has seen in them the symbol of industriousness, industry and community spirit. It is common to find them in children's stories, in poetic compositions or mythological traditions. Furthermore, the aristocracy was reflected in its rigid social structure at the time.

Raising bees in captivity is called beekeeping and is carried out for commercial purposes to sell their honey, naturally sweet and endowed with antiseptic properties, as well as the wax that they are capable of secreting.

Its bite is also famous, with varying levels of toxicity, particularly painful and capable of triggering severe reactions in allergic people.

Characteristics of bees

bees stinger characteristics — Female bees have a stinger at the end of their abdomen.

In general, bees are characterized by the following:

are arthropod animals that is, with segmented bodies and limbs with joints, equipped with three pairs of legs, a pair of antennae and two pairs of membranous wings. Its body is covered with villi.
The body of bees It usually measures between 2mm and 4 cm, depending on the species and is made up of three parts: head, thorax and abdomen. At the end of the latter, females have a stinger. The upper extremities are adapted to allow cleaning the wings, while the lower extremities are adapted to transport floral nectar.
Their eyes are compound and large in size They occupy almost the entire head, just below the antennae, which allow them to receive chemical, olfactory, sound and movement signals.
as a species have enormous communication skills and information management. Through a “dance” performed with their bodies, they can tell each other how far or close a food source is. In addition, they are capable of orienting themselves by the sun, the incidence of solar rays and by the Earth's magnetic field.
Bee society is strongly stratified. It is composed like a social pyramid at the top of which is the queen bee, the only one capable of laying eggs, and then comes the body of workers, and at the end the few non-working males, called drones. The queens live much longer than the others, and can even reach 6 years.
Of all the known species of bees, only 7 are capable of producing honey. Every year, 1.6 tons of this product are generated in the West. To do this, a single bee can visit more than 7,000 flowers daily. It takes four million visits to generate one kilo of honey.

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Types of bees

There are eight families of bees, grouping all known species, which can vary enormously from one another. These families are:

Colletidae. Primitive, wasp-like bees, comprising some 3,000 species.
Adrenidae. Solitary and large bees, among which there are species of parasitic life.
Halictidae. “Mining” bees, since they spend much of their lives underground, many of which are attracted to the sweating of mammals.
Oxaeidae. Bees of large size and fast flight, anatomically similar to those of the group Adrenidae.
Melittidae. About 180 species of pollinating bees, typical of Africa and the northern hemisphere, of small to moderate size. They represent an evolutionary link between primitive and more modern bees.
Megachilidae. Leaf and stem cutter bees, capable of building complex structures in the ground to nest, using pieces of plants cut by themselves. Unlike other bees, they collect pollen on their bellies, instead of their hind legs.
Apidae. The largest group of all, which includes common bees, stingless bees, bumblebees and others less known.

Bees and wasps

bees wasps — Wasps feed on other species of insects.

Despite the similarities that may exist between a wasp and a bee, they are two different types of animals, although evolutionarily related. That is, bees (just like ants) arose from certain wasps of the family crabronidaein the early Cretaceous (about 100 million years ago).

However, differ from wasps mainly in that they feed on floral nectar instead of the meat of other insect species, as wasps still do today.

bee habitat

Ordinary bees are social animals, living in swarms. However, they are not the majority:

Lonely bees This is how 75% of bee species live.
Parasitic bees They represent 15%.
Bees that live in honeycombs Only 10% live inside honeycombs, which are complex structures that they build themselves with mud, plant remains or other materials, at the top of trees, in the corners of buildings or in any place where the colony feels safe from their predators.

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Regarding their geographical distribution, the different species of bees are found practically all over the world adapted to the most diverse climates, and it often happens that crossing and hybridization between them, as happened in Brazil with the Africanized bee, produces aggressive and more dangerous variants.

The honeycombs

bees honeycomb — In the honeycombs the bees deposit their larvae and also honey.

It is called a honeycomb a type of structures typical of honey bees, made from mud and wax that worker bees can secrete through a set of specialized glands.

Inside, Honeycombs are made up of small regular cells inside which the bees deposit their larvae, and also the honey and pollen on which the hive feeds. The queen bee is also found in a special location. The honeycombs have a shape and dimensions characteristic of the species of bees that inhabit them.

Bee feeding

In general, common bees feed on pollen and nectar that they extract from flowers, and from which they make various types of food:

Royal jelly It is the most nutritious form of honey, with which they feed the larvae and the queen bee.
Diluted honey or pollen They constitute food for the army of worker bees.

Reproduction of bees

bees reproduction metamorphosis — Bee larvae go through metamorphosis to emerge as adults.

The reproduction of bees is determined by their pyramidal structure, since The only bee capable of laying eggs is the queen bee. Therefore, it is cared for and protected by all the other worker bees.

To lay the eggs, queens must be fertilized by a drone which is a male bee, the only form that exists within the swarm. The drones are unproductive, although they can collaborate in the defense of the honeycomb, and their role is restricted to copulation with the queen bee. Sometimes, after being fertilized, the queen will not require the male again for a long time.

Bee eggs are tiny and whitish. A limbless larva emerges from the eggs which goes through different molts until finally becoming a chrysalis, completing the circuit of a complete metamorphosis until emerging as an adult.

Importance of bees

bees pollination importance — Bees transport pollen from plants.

The ecological importance of bees cannot be stressed enough. are the main pollinators of plant species in the world that is, those responsible for distributing pollen from one plant to another, thus facilitating the sexual fertilization of plants and giving them genetic diversity.

This occurs when the bee approaches the flowers to sip nectar, and the plant's pollen adheres to its body, part of which will reach another flower and allow the exchange of genetic material between the plants. Without bees, this process could take significantly longer, although there are a few other species capable of helping with the same process, but none as effective as bees.

Apart from that, the bees form the basis of the honey industry a food that humans can take advantage of in their diet and that is both nutritious and antiseptic.

Danger of extinction

The bees have many predators and are victims of many parasites capable of infecting an entire honeycomb. Furthermore, being so territorial, they compete with each other for available resources. However, the great adversary of bees is precisely humans.

The massive use of pesticides and chemicals in agriculture It is directly responsible for the 30% decline in bee populations in the United States, for example, and similar situations occur around the globe.

The practice of modern beekeeping has also replaced the floral search of bees with sweet and synthetic drinks, making the animals prefer to go to an easy and nearby source of sugars, rather than to the nectar produced in small quantities by flowers.

This whole panorama promises future ecological disasters and loss of diversity. Bees are easily one of the most important species in the global ecosystem, and They are currently in danger of extinction everywhere.