Solitary and Social Bees.

There is some evidence that the first bees appeared in the Cretaceous period which spanned some 70 million years, (about 146 million - 76 million years ago) There are not too many fossil records about bees at that time, but there are those of Sphecid wasps, which are generally believed to be the ancestors of present day bees.

Sphecid wasps were originally predatory but during the passage of time some of them developed a life favouring the collecting of pollen and nectar. It is not known for sure how and why this change occoured but it did. It is possible that they got the taste for sweet nectar through eating aphids and the like, but it cannot be known for sure. The collecting of pollen and nectar would be much easier than hunting elusive prey, so perhaps the female wasps decided to feed their larvae on that and the evolution began.,/p>

It also helped by the growth of flowering plants which is a pre requsite for the bees to develop. The oldest known fossil bee is a stingless bee given the name Trigona prisca. It was preserved in amber from the Upper Cretaceous period in New Jersey, from about 96 - 74 million years ago. The increasing diversification of flowering plants gives the best evidence that bees originated during that period.

The most known bees to the general public are the Bumble bees (bombus) and the Honey bee (apis mellifera) but there are a wide diversification of bees. They range in size from 1.5mm in some tropical stingless bees to the carpenter bees which can be up to 30 - 40 mm long. The colours of bees vary from grey brown to those tropical bees of bright metallic green, blue and bronze.

Note the long tapered abdomen

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