CATDOLL : CATDOLL: What are the characteristics of bees?

1. What are the characteristics of bees?

Characteristics of Big Bee:

The body length of the giant honey bee worker is 16 to 18 mm; the head, thorax, legs and the three segments at the end of the abdomen are black; the wings are dark brown with a purple luster, the anterior chamber and the sub-anterior chamber are the deepest, and the hind wings are slightly lighter. The body is densely covered with short hairs; the hairs on the head and face are sparse and short, and are grayish white; the top of the skull, the mesothorax and the thoracic plates are densely and long dark brown to black hairs; the scutellum and the thoracic and abdominal segments are densely covered with long yellow hairs; the feet are covered with black hairs; the hairs on the outer sides of the forelegs are yellow and longer; the inner sides of the base tarsus of the middle and hind legs are covered with golden brown hairs; the dorsal plates of the 1st to 3rd abdominal segments are densely covered with short yellow hairs, and the remaining segments are covered with brown to dark brown short hairs. The body color of the giant honey bee workers in Hainan is lighter than that of the giant honey bees in Yunnan. The elbow vein index of the giant honey bees in Yunnan is 9.57±1.37, and that of the giant honey bees in Hainan is 9.32±1.31.

The male bee is 16 to 17 mm long, with large compound eyes that are connected at the tips and are brown; the abdomen is black; the thoracic and abdominal segments, most of the dorsal plates of the 1st to 6th abdominal segments, the middle legs and hind legs are reddish brown, and the forelegs are dark brown; the body hair is light yellow to yellow; the compound eyes are densely covered with short yellow hairs, the base of the lip is covered with black hairs, and the area around the simple eyes, cheeks, the outer side of the forelegs, the dorsal plates and abdominal plates of the 1st to 2nd abdominal segments are covered with long yellow hairs.

2. What are the characteristics of bees?

Bees collecting honey

Bees feed entirely on flowers, including pollen and nectar, the latter of which is sometimes prepared and stored as honey. There is no doubt that bees pollinate flowers when they collect pollen. When bees collect pollen from flower to flower, they drop some pollen onto the flowers. This dropped pollen is of great importance because it often causes cross-pollination of plants. The actual value of bees as pollinators is greater than the value of their production of honey and beeswax.

Drones usually do not live long, do not collect pollen, and are not responsible for feeding young bees. Worker bees are responsible for all nest building and food storage work, and usually have special structures to facilitate the carrying of pollen. Most bees collect pollen from a variety of flowers, but some bees only collect pollen from flowers of certain families, some only collect pollen from flowers of a certain color, and some only collect pollen from some related flowers. The mouth of the bee is a tool for collecting and carrying pollen, and it seems to be able to adapt to different types of flowers.

Bees can make sounds because they have vocal organs, which are two extremely small black spots located on the bee's abdomen.

The geographical distribution of bees depends on the distribution of nectar plants. They are distributed all over the world, but there are more species in tropical and subtropical areas. The distribution of different subfamilies or genera has certain limitations. For example, bumblebees in the Apidae family are mainly distributed in the northern temperate zone, extending to the Arctic region, but there is no distribution record in tropical regions. The Brachyglossidae family is distributed in Australia; the subgenus of the carpenter bee tribe of the Apidae family is only distributed in Central Asia; the genus of stingless bees in the Apidae family is distributed in the tropics. Bees are distributed in different landscapes, and most of them live in grasslands, forests, river valleys, mountains and deserts. Each landscape belt has representative genera or species. For example, the ground bumblebee is a forest-steppe species, the genus Pseudo-geophilus is a typical grassland genus, and the genus Paraspermum is mostly grassland species.

Social life: The queen bee (mother bee), drones and worker bees, which have different morphology, physiology and functions, live in the same nest and have a clear division of labor. The queen bee is relatively large, with well-developed ovaries, specializing in egg-laying, and no pollen-collecting organs. Characteristics: The body has a chitinous exoskeleton, and the surface is densely covered with villi, some of which are feather-like branches. The body is divided into three segments: head, thorax and abdomen. The thorax and abdomen are connected by a thin stalk-like abdominal stalk. There are three pairs of thoracic legs.

Honey bees belong to the order Hymenoptera, family Apidae. Honey bees are social insects, consisting of queen bees, drones, worker bees and other individuals. There are many types of honey bees, mainly including ten types: small honey bees, black small honey bees, large honey bees, black large honey bees, Sabah honey bees, Sulawesi honey bees, green slave honey bees, western honey bees, oriental honey bees, and Chinese honey bees. The first four are wild bee species, distributed in Hainan, Guangxi and Yunnan, China, and the latter two include many subspecies, most of which are geographically isolated natural subspecies. Artificially bred honey bee varieties are mostly hybrids.

3. How many types of bees are there?

There are 35 to 40 species of bees in the world, about 10 of which belong to the Oriental honey bee species and 25 to 30 belong to the Western honey bee species; among them, there are 9 European types, about 15 African types, and 4 to 5 Middle Eastern types.

The four bee species with the highest economic value recognized by the world all come from Europe. They are the European black bee, the Italian bee, the Carniola bee (also translated as Carniola bee) and the Caucasian bee.

At present, the most popular bees are: Chinese honey bees, commonly known as Chinese bees, the main product of this bee is honey, and other bee products are rare, but it is relatively easy to raise in general mountainous areas. Another type is Italian bees, commonly known as Italian bees.

Additional information:

Although the western honey bee has many overlaps with the Chinese honey bee in the natural ecosystem of China in terms of ecological niche, their individual characteristics are very different;

For example, the worker bees of the Western honey bee have a low sense of smell and cannot easily detect low shrubs and herbaceous plants with scattered or sparse flowering, such as the Cruciferae, Rosa, Anacardiaceae, Theaceae, Araliaceae, Lamiaceae, Asteraceae, and Cucurbitaceae.

These species have scattered, short plants and grow mostly in shaded places. When the flowers are in bloom, Chinese honey bees are the main flower collectors, and Western honey bees rarely visit.

Taxonomically speaking, there is only one kind of bee, scientifically named apis, and other bees include the wasp, the Chinese wasp, the trichogrammatid, etc. But specifically, there are 80 families and 112,000 species, and it is estimated that there are at least 250,000 species.

The largest bee is only about 2 centimeters long, while the yellow-legged wasp is 18 to 23 mm long and is larger than the bee. The black-tailed wasp is 25 to 33 mm long.

I remember that the largest honeycomb was two meters high and one meter in diameter. But I'm not sure. And it doesn't seem to be a beehive.

Hornet is the common name for wasp.

bee

Honey bees belong to the order Hymenoptera and the family Apidae. They are 8-20 mm long, yellowish brown or dark brown, and covered with dense hair. The head is almost as wide as the thorax. The antennae are knee-shaped, the compound eyes are oval and hairy, the mouthparts are chewing and sucking, and the hind legs are pollen-carrying legs. They have two pairs of membranous wings; the forewings are large, the hindwings are small, and the front and back wings are linked by a row of wing hooks. The abdomen is nearly oval, with less hair than the thorax, and there is a stinger at the end of the abdomen. Honey bees undergo complete metamorphosis, and they go through four stages in their life: egg, larva, pupa, and adult.

In the bee society, they still live a matriarchal life. Among the members of their group family, there is a queen bee (queen bee), which is a female bee with reproductive ability, responsible for laying eggs and reproducing offspring, and at the same time "ruling" this large family. Although the queen bee has mated, not all the eggs she lays are fertilized. According to the needs of the group family, it can lay fertilized eggs that will develop into female bees (worker bees without reproductive ability) in the future; it can also lay unfertilized eggs that will develop into drones in the future. When the members of this group family reproduce too much and cause crowding, it is necessary to divide the group. The process of dividing the group is as follows: the worker bees make a special honeycomb - the royal cell, and the queen bee lays fertilized eggs in the royal cell; after the small larvae are hatched, the worker bees give them special treatment and feed them with the highly nutritious royal jelly produced in their bodies. When the small larvae develop into adults, they become new queen bees with reproductive ability. The new queen bee will lead a part of the worker bees to fly away to form a new group. Apis cerana Fabr. and A. mellifera L. are both commonly raised beneficial insects. During the breeding process, after the new queen bee is born, it must be divided into groups manually, otherwise a queen bee will lead a group of worker bees to leave the hive and fly away, resulting in the loss of the bee colony. Beekeepers use artificial methods to produce royal jelly, which is actually to artificially make some royal cells and put them in the beehive for the queen bee to lay eggs. When the larvae are hatched and the worker bees are fed with royal jelly, the beekeeper will take out the royal jelly. In fact, the beekeeper is using a trick, which shows that even smart little bees can be deceived.

There are a lot of drones, and there may be nearly a thousand of them in a colony. The only duty of a drone is to mate with the queen bee. During mating, the queen bee flies out of the hive, and the drones in the colony follow after her. This is called a nuptial flight. The queen bee's nuptial flight mate selection is carried out through a flying competition, and only the winner can become a mate. After mating, the drone's reproductive organs fall off into the queen bee's reproductive organs. At this time, the drone has completed its life mission and died. The drones that failed to mate with the queen bee only know how to eat and drink after returning to the nest, and they cannot collect honey. They become superfluous lazy bees in the bee colony. As time goes by, the workers will expel them. Beekeepers are also reluctant to keep too many drones in the bee colony to consume honey, so they eliminate them artificially. From this point of view,

Worker bees are the most numerous in this group. The number of worker bees that beekeepers keep in a bee colony varies according to the season, and is generally between 20,000 and 50,000 worker bees. Worker bees are the most hardworking. The children's song "Little bees, busy all day, collecting nectar and making honey" only refers to worker bees. In addition to collecting pollen and making honey, building nests, feeding larvae, cleaning the environment, and protecting the bee colony are also the tasks of worker bees. From spring to late autumn, when plants bloom, bees are busy every day. Winter is the only short period of leisure for bees. However, cold weather and low temperatures in the hive are not good for bees, because bees are cold-blooded animals, and their body temperature changes with the temperature of the surrounding environment. The wise little bees have come up with a special way to resist the severe cold. When the temperature in the hive drops to 13°C, they move closer to each other in the hive and form a ball. The lower the temperature, the tighter the ball, which reduces the surface area of ​​the bee ball and increases its density to prevent excessive cooling. According to measurements, in the coldest time, the temperature inside the bee ball can still be maintained at around 24°C. At the same time, they also use eating more honey and increasing exercise to generate heat to increase the temperature inside the hive. When the weather is cold, the temperature of the surface of the bee ball is lower than that of the center of the ball. At this time, the bees on the surface of the ball drill into the center of the ball, while the bees in the center of the ball move outward. They take care of each other and exchange positions repeatedly to survive the cold winter. How do they eat the honey stored in the hive during the wintering period? The clever little bees have their own tricks. They do not need to dissolve the ball and crawl out to eat separately, but get food by passing it to each other. In this way, the temperature inside the ball can be kept constant or less changed, which is conducive to safe wintering. The characteristics of the Hymenoptera are obvious, including chewing mouthparts, and the connection between the front and rear wings is completed by wing hooks. This group is widely distributed, with more than 100,000 known species and an estimated at least 250,000 species, including various ants and bees. Depending on whether the base of the abdomen is constricted and tapered, it is divided into the broad-waisted suborder and the slender-waisted suborder. The broad-waisted suborder (Smiloptera) is a low-level herbivorous group, including sawflies, wood wasps, stem wasps, etc.; the slender-waisted suborder (cone tail: Ichneumonidae, Braconidae, Micromyidae, Trichogrammatidae, Gall wasps

Needle tail: Vespidae (Sphecidae, Sphecidae) includes most species of Hymenoptera, including ants, wasps and various parasitic wasps.

The order Hymenoptera includes various bees and ants. Their common features are two pairs of membranous wings and chewing mouthparts. The first abdominal segment of the abdomen is merged into the metathorax, called the parathoracic abdominal segment. The second abdominal segment is reduced to a waist called the abdominal stalk. Female insects have needle-shaped ovipositors, and some species have the ability to sting, which is a complete metamorphosis. The order Hymenoptera is divided into two suborders.

1. Symphyta The bees of Symphyta have abdomens that do not contract into a waist. The hind wings have three basal cells and are all herbivorous.

1. Tenthredinidae: Sawflies have short and thick bodies, with a deep concave rear edge of the pronotum. The forewings have a thick wing mole, and the females have a saw-like ovipositor. Sawfly larvae are very similar to Lepidoptera larvae, but there are no hooks on the abdominal feet, such as wheat sawflies and rose sawflies.

(ii) Apocrita The insects of Apocrita have their abdomen and thorax connected by a waist-like shape. The hind wings have at most two basal chambers. Most of them are parasitic species, and many are social insects. This suborder is divided into two major groups: the pintails and conetails.

A. Terebrantia The bees of Terebrantia have a longitudinal split in the middle of the abdomen with the ventral plate at the end of the abdomen. The ovipositor extends from the longitudinal split in the front of the abdomen. They have no sting and will not sting. Most of the Terebrantia species are endoparasitic, and the following families are common.

2. Ichneumonidae: Ichneumonidae are small to large bees with slender bodies. Their antennae are filamentous, their forewings have obvious wing spots, and there is a transverse vein called the second vein on the wing surface below the wing cell. The larvae are parasitic wasps of other insects.

3. Braconidae: The insects of this family are small in shape, very similar to Ichneumonidae, but the forewings do not have a second vein. The larvae are also parasitic wasps of other insects, such as the rice leaf folder, etc.

4. Chalcididae: Chalcids are small bees, often black. Their antennae are knee-shaped and divided into five parts: the pedicel, the pedunculate, the segment, the 7-segmented cord, and the enlarged club. The wing veins are degenerate, and the wing spots are very small. The hind leg segments are enlarged, and the tibia is curved and arc-shaped. The larvae are endoparasitic wasps of larvae or pupae of other insects.

5. Trichogrammatidae: The insects of this family are tiny, less than 1 mm in size. Their antennae are knee-shaped, their two compound eyes are mostly red, the veins of the two pairs of wings are degenerate, and there are rows of cilia on the wing surface, so the Trichogrammatidae was formerly called the Trichoglossidae. The larvae live in the eggs of other insects. They are a parasitic wasp that can be artificially bred in large quantities and are widely used in agricultural and forestry production to prevent and control various pests.

6. Cynipidae: Gall wasps are small black or dark brown bees with filamentous antennae, relatively small heads, simple veins on the forewings and no wing spots. The abdomen is spherical, and the ovipositor extends from the middle of the abdomen. Most of the larvae are herbivorous, boring into the leaves and stems of plants to form galls. For example, chestnut gall wasp.

B. Aculeata: The Aculeata bees have no longitudinal splits at the end of the abdomen, and the ovipositor extends from the end. The ovipositor is specialized into a stinger and is usually retracted inside the body. This division is mostly predatory or ectoparasitic insects, and the following families are common.

7. Vespidae: Bees of this family are usually called wasps or hornets. They are medium to large in size, with smooth body surfaces and various patterns. The upper jaw is well developed. The wings are narrow and long, and folded together longitudinally when at rest. The abdomen is generally not contracted and is shaped like an abdominal stalk. Wasps have a simple social organization, with queens, drones and worker bees. They often build a paper bell-shaped or layered hive and live collectively on it. Adult wasps mainly prey on small insects of the order Lepidoptera, so they are also an important type of natural enemy insects.

8. Sphecidae: Sphecidae are also called thin-waisted wasps. Their long and slender abdomen is an important feature. Sphecidae have long and slender bodies, usually black with yellow, orange or red markings. Their legs are long and slender, and their front legs are suitable for digging. Sphecidae use mud to build a chamber in the corners of walls, eaves, rocks or earth walls. Adults of sphecidae catch lepidoptera larvae or orthoptera insects, anesthetize them with stingers, and then seal them in the chamber for their offspring to eat. Therefore, they are also a kind of natural enemy insects.

9. Scoliidae: The bees of this family have relatively stout bodies, densely covered with fine hairs, black in color, and with white, yellow, and red markings. The head is narrower than the chest, the antennae are short, the legs are short and thick, the wing veins cannot reach the wing tips, and there are very fine longitudinal wrinkles where there are no wing veins. Scoliidae are parasitic natural enemies of the larvae of scarab beetles - grubs. Common examples include the black Scoliidae.

In addition to the above-introduced families of the Hymenoptera suborder, we will often encounter various ants in the Formicidae, bees in the Apidae, various bumblebees in the Bombidae, etc. Some of these insects have long been used by humans for the benefit of mankind, such as bees, and some are gradually being recognized by humans and benefiting mankind, such as using ants to control forest pests, researching and developing ant food with health properties, etc.

Identifying features:

Chewing mouthparts; 2 pairs of membranous wings, extending backwards and can be folded.

Two suborders (Broad-waisted and Slender-waisted), 80 families, 112,000 species, estimated to be at least 250,000. Most are predatory or parasitic, important terrestrial and pollinating insects, and only a few are herbivorous.

Economically, this order of insects is one of the most beneficial insect groups currently seen in human interests.

Insects in this order show great diversity in habits, with ants and bees occupying two of the three major social insects. The complexity of the social behavior of ants and bees is astonishing.

Haha, I'm sorry to disappoint you. Now there are a lot of people raising bees. You just want to raise bees now, so the potential is not great. If it was ten years ago, there would be a huge market. In short, there are too many people doing it now. It's very ordinary. Unless you have some highlights, you will have a place. Otherwise, the business will be mediocre. Wish you good luck!

There are 9 species of bees in existence in the world. (1) Black honeybee Apis andreniformis Smith (2) Honeybee Apis florea Fabricius (3) Black honeybee Apis laboriosa Smith (4) Honeybee Apis dorsata Fabricius (5) Sabah honeybee Apis koschevnikovi Buttel-Reepen (6) Green honeybee Apis nulunsis Tingek. Koeniger and Koeniger (7) Sulawesi honeybee Apis nigrocincta Smith (8) Oriental honeybee Apis cerana Fabricius (9) Western honeybee Apis mellifera L.