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Honey Bees, Bumble Bees, and Allies

Lat. “Apidae“
family of subfamily “Bees“
1 family, 1 genus, 4 species

The family Apidae includes all the genera formerly placed in the families Anthophoridae and Ctenoplectridae, in addition to honey bees, bumble bees, stingless bees, and orchid bees. Although social bees are the most visible members of Apidae, the majority are actually solitary, including some cleptoparasitic species. The old family Apidae contained four tribes, which have been reclassified as tribes of the subfamily Apinae, along with other tribes and subfamilies. A Brazilian classification in 2005 attempted to place all bee families under the name “Apidae,” but it has not been widely adopted.

Hierarchy

Bumble Bees
Lat. “Bombus“
genus of family “Honey Bees, Bumble Bees, and Allies“
1 genus, 1 subgenus, 4 species
Western Honey Bee
Lat. “Apis mellifera“
species of family “Honey Bees, Bumble Bees, and Allies“
1 species

Taxonomy
#

In addition to its historical classification (honey bees, bumble bees, stingless bees and orchid bees), the family Apidae presently includes all the genera formerly placed in the families Anthophoridae and Ctenoplectridae. Although the most visible members of Apidae are social, the vast majority of apid bees are solitary, including a number of cleptoparasitic species.The old family Apidae contained four tribes (Apinae: Apini, Euglossini and Bombinae: Bombini, Meliponini) which have been reclassified as tribes of the subfamily Apinae, along with all of the former tribes and subfamilies of Anthophoridae and the former family Ctenoplectridae, which was demoted to tribe status. The trend to move groups down in taxonomic rank has been taken further by a 2005 Brazilian classification that places all existing bee families together under the name “Apidae”, but it has not been widely accepted in the literature since that time.

See also
#

Bee (mythology) List of crop plants pollinated by bees

External links#

BugGuide.Net: Family Apidae—Cuckoo, Carpenter, Digger, Bumble, and Honey Bees; and other bees . BugGuide.net: Native Bees of North America

The family Apidae includes all the genera formerly placed in the families Anthophoridae and Ctenoplectridae, in addition to honey bees, bumble bees, stingless bees, and orchid bees. Although social bees are the most visible members of Apidae, the majority are actually solitary, including some cleptoparasitic species. The old family Apidae contained four tribes, which have been reclassified as tribes of the subfamily Apinae, along with other tribes and subfamilies. A Brazilian classification in 2005 attempted to place all bee families under the name “Apidae,” but it has not been widely adopted.

Ancestry Graph

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Further Information

„Honey Bees, Bumble Bees, and Allies“ on wikipedia.org
„Honey Bees, Bumble Bees, and Allies“ on iNaturalist.org

Copyright

Wikipedia
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Apidae the free encyclopedia Wikipedia which is released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License). On Wikipedia a list of authors is available.