What’s a bee?

In scientific terms, a bee is anything of Class Insecta in one of seven families within the Order Hymenoptera: Andrenidae, Apidae, Colletidae, Haicidae, Megachilidae, Melittidae, and Stenotritidae.

There are about 20,000 different bees worldwide.

It used to be that bees were vegetarian insects, closely related to Wasps, that, in the wild, rely on pollen from flowers as their protein source. But discovered fairly recently are carnivorous or “Vulture” bees. [i] All the meat-eating bees live in South America, so we can still say all bees in North America are vegetarian.

Wikipedia says “Bees differ from closely related groups such as wasps by having branched or plume-like setae (hairs), combs on the forelimbs for cleaning their antennae, small anatomical differences in limb structure, and the venation of the hind wings; and in females, by having the seventh dorsal abdominal plate divided into two half-plates.'‘ [ii]

Some bees can be difficult to see.  The Perdita minima, native to the Sonoran Desert, thought to be the world’s smallest, is a bit less than 2mm in length. [iii] Compare that with what is claimed as the world’s largest bee, Megachile pluto, a native of Indonesia, (more commonly called Wallace’s Giant Bee), whose females sometimes reach 45mm in length.[iv]

In comparison, Apis mellifera (the western Honey bee), has queens that max out at 18-20mm while workers are usually in the range of 10-15mm.[v]