17-424: The Bombini are a tribe of large bristly apid bees which feed on pollen or nectar . Many species are social, forming nests of up to a few hundred individuals; other species, formerly classified as Psithyrus cuckoo bees, are brood parasites of nest-making species. The tribe contains a single living genus, Bombus , the bumblebees, and some extinct genera such as Calyptapis and Oligobombus . The tribe
34-860: 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. The subfamily Apinae contains honey bees , bumblebees , stingless bees , orchid bees , and digger bees , among others. The bees of most tribes placed in Apinae are solitary with nests that are simple burrows in the soil. However, honey bees, stingless bees, and bumblebees are eusocial or colonial. These are sometimes believed to have each developed this trait independently, and show notable differences in such characteristics as communication between workers and methods of nest construction. Tribes include: The subfamily Nomadinae , or cuckoo bees, has 31 genera in 10 tribes which are all cleptoparasites in
51-415: A number of other less widely known groups. Many are valuable pollinators in natural habitats and for agricultural crops . 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,
68-566: A route via Asia, leading to a biogeographical puzzle because of the expanse of the Indian Ocean separating Australia from Africa. The most likely routes involved were now-submerged island stepping stones across the Indian Ocean, or dispersal from Africa to Antarctica and then overland dispersal from Antarctica to Australia when the two continents were still connected (ref). Both of these scenarios are problematic, but have been suggested for other animal and plant species. Recent studies are marked by
85-463: Is a tribe of bees in the subfamily Xylocopinae , family Apidae . They occur throughout sub-Saharan Africa , South East Asia , and Australasia . There is also a rare genus, Exoneuridia, that occurs in isolated regions of Turkey , Iraq , Lebanon and Iran . Many of the species in the tribe form small social colonies where a group of females cooperatively care for the developing larvae. The larvae are fed on pollen which, like most other bees,
102-610: Is carried on specialised hairs of the hind pair of legs, but the pollen is fed to the larvae in a progressive fashion and usually placed directly onto their bodies where they then consume it. The larvae of allodapine bees are remarkable in their complex morphology, and in most species they possess appendages, tubercles and long setae. The strange morphology of allodapine larvae is probably a result of living in open tunnels where they are in constant contact with other larvae and with adults. The appendages, tubercles and setae serve to hold and manipulate food, and may also help larvae move around
119-501: Is relatively recent, much less than 40 million years ago, compared with the honeybees, bumble bees and stingless bees, where true queen and worker castes evolved about 100 million years ago. Most allodapine bee species have strongly female-biased sex ratios, and in many species less than 15% of brood are male. This is very different from the vast majority of animal species where sex ratios are very close to 1:1 males:females. The preponderance of female-biased sex ratios in allodapine bees
136-456: Is thought to be due to the benefits of sisters cooperating with each other and involves a theory known as local resource enhancement. For example, in Exoneura robusta , females provide the useful work in the colony and group living increases colony success, so the sex ratio is almost always female biased in this species. Socially parasitic allodapine bees are species that have evolved to exploit
153-745: The Late Eocene Insect Bed of the Bembridge Marls on the Isle of Wight , England. The holotype fossil was described by re-examining a specimen in the Smith Collection. Apidae Apidae is the largest family within the superfamily Apoidea , containing at least 5700 species of bees . The family includes some of the most commonly seen bees, including bumblebees and honey bees , but also includes stingless bees (also used for honey production), carpenter bees , orchid bees , cuckoo bees , and
170-453: The allodapine trait of rearing brood in communal tunnels, a trait that might allow other species to surreptitiously lay additional eggs without them being detected. Several studies have shown that allodapine bees first evolved in Africa and then spread to Madagascar, Asia and Australia. The earliest dispersal from Africa to Australia occurred about 30 million years ago and did not appear to involve
187-1015: The nest. These abilities are important because larvae compete with each other to gain food, a situation which is different from all other bees, where individual larvae are isolated in cells and do not have to compete with each other. There are over 300 described species of allodapine bees, but many more species are undescribed. They are unique among bees in progressively rearing their larvae in undivided tunnels, so that individual larvae are not physically isolated from each other and are in constant contact with adult females, who provide them with food, groom them, and remove their faeces. Allodapine bees vary greatly in their forms of sociality, from subsocial to highly eusocial. There are no known species that are purely solitary. They have been used widely to study social evolution , sex allocation , social parasitism , and historical biogeography. Many allodapine species exhibit very simple forms of social organization, without clear queen or worker castes. For this reason it
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#1732855593649204-672: The nests of other bees. Tribes include: The subfamily Xylocopinae , which includes carpenter bees , are mostly solitary, though they tend to be gregarious. Some tribe lineages, such as the Allodapini , contain eusocial species. Most members of this subfamily make nests in plant stems or wood. Tribes include: Allodapini Allodape Allodapula Braunsapis Brevineura Compsomelissa Effractapis Eucondylops Exoneura Exoneurella Exoneuridia Halterapis Hasinamelissa Inquilina Macrogalea Nasutapis The Allodapini
221-494: The number of species they have involved that have not been formally described (refs). This suggests that there is a large amount of allodapine diversity that is not covered by formal scientific taxonomy. Conservation concerns centre on two regions: (i) large-scale habitat loss in Madagascar poses a major threat to that island's unique bee fauna, including allodapine bees, many of which are still to be scientifically described; and (ii)
238-423: The social systems of their hosts (which are other allodapine bees) so that the parasites enter the host colonies and lay their eggs there, and both the parasite adults as well as their larvae are fed by the host species. Molecular research has revealed nine origins of social parasitism in allodapine bees, more than all other bees and wasp groups combined. These repeated origins of social parasitism are probably due to
255-493: The vast majority of apid bees are solitary, including a number of kleptoparasitic 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
272-507: Was described by Pierre André Latreille in 1802. Bombus cerdanyensis was described from Late Miocene lacustrine beds of La Cerdanya , Spain in 2014. Calyptapis florissantensis was described by Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell in 1906 from the Chadronian ( Eocene ) lacustrine – large shale of Florissant in the US. Oligobombus cuspidatus was described by Antropov et al (2014) from
289-499: Was long thought that they had only recently evolved forms of social living. However, molecular phylogenetic studies show that social living is ancestral for the tribe as a whole and has been in place for about 50 million years. An ancient origin of sociality in this group helps explain very sophisticated forms of social communication in some species, such as pheromonal regulation of reproduction and complex forms of kin recognition. The origin of queen and workers castes in allodapine bees
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