What is a bee?

Bees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants, far-famed for their role in pollination and, within the case of the known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey and beeswax. There are around twenty thousand species, only one of which is the common honeybee, the famous European honeybee Apis mellifera . The bees come in different colours, most bees don’t dance, only a couple of species create honey. For many bees species, stinging doesn’t mean death (some never sting). Majority of the bees are united by their power to pollinate.

There are lots of bees that don’t adjust to the popular perception of yellow and black.

The North American sweat bee Agapostemon splendens,  is green and blue, carpenter bees (Xylocopa varipuncta) also from North America, the females are black and the males are yellow, the European honeybee is by far and away the most prolific honey producer.

As social skills, all these honey-making species have evolved ways to communicate important information to the rest of the bee family.

Most splendidly,the  honey bees perform a “waggle dance”: a series of deliberate movements across the honeycomb that conveys the direction and distance of a source of pollen and nectar.

Completely different bee species seem to own their own distinct “dialects” of waggle dance.  But bees are so smart that when researchers coaxed Asiatic and European bees to inhabit the same hive, the Asiatic bees were able to translate the dancing language of the Europeans.

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