Black+and+yellow+black+and+yellow+(Bumble+bees+and+the+family+apidae)

**Apidae**

 * Kingdom: Animalia**
 * Phylum: Arthropoda**
 * Class: Insecta**
 * Order: Hymenoptera**
 * Family: Apidae**

The family Apidae is a group within the order Hymenoptera that contains many of the most commonly known bees, such as the honey bee and the bumble bee. (pictured left) Some of the other, less commonly know members of this group are the Stingless bees, Carpenter bees, and Orchid bees. Many of the bees in this group have the almost universally known black and yellow coloration in some form or another, but a few are solid black or brown. Bees in the family Apidae are found all over the world, with the exception of Antarctica and some of the northern European countries. Though the well known honey and bumble bees are social, the majority of this family is solitary, meaning they don't live in hives, and while bees are often known to the public as pollinators, many of these non-social bees in this family are cleptoparasites in other words they steal food from other organisms in order to eat.
 * __Overview__ **


 * __Subfamilies__** Within Apidae, there are 3 subfamilies, these are: Apinae, Nomadinae and Xylocopinae. Apinae includes honey and bumble bees, the Nomadinae includes the cuckoo bees, and the Xylocopinae includes carpenter bees.

__**Interesting Behavior**__ One strange behavior that some of the solitary members of this family express is the formation of sleeping aggregations. These occur at nighttime when male bees find a flower and hold on to it with their mighty jaws, dangling there all night while they "sleep". The bees in the picture below were rudely awoken by the photographer after being connected to the flower all night by their mouth parts.



For more information, Images and members of Apidae can be found here

Sources: 1. Annette Van Oystaeyen, Denise Araujo Alves, Ricardo Caliari Oliveira, Daniela Lima do Nascimento, Fábio Santos do Nascimento, Johan Billen, Tom Wenseleers, Sneaky queens in Melipona bees selectively detect and infiltrate queenless colonies, Animal Behaviour, Volume 86, Issue 3, September 2013, Pages 603-609, ISSN 0003-3472, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.07.001. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347213003047)

2. Erika Nardone, Tania Dey, Peter G. Kevan, The effect of sugar solution type, sugar concentration and viscosity on the imbibition and energy intake rate of bumblebees, Journal of Insect Physiology, Volume 59, Issue 9, September 2013, Pages 919-933, ISSN 0022-1910, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jinsphys.2013.06.007. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002219101300139X)

Other helpful sites and links:

Bug Guide

[|Diadasia-The life of bees]