Godfray, H. C. J. (1994). Parasitoids: Behavioral and Evolutionary Ecology. Princeton University Press. p. 299. ISBN 978-0-691-00047-3. Leland Clifton Wyman; Flora L. Bailey (1964). Navaho Indian Ethnoentomology. Anthropology Series. University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 9780826301109. LCCN 64024356. Fleming, Nic (4 June 2014). "How insects could feed the food industry of tomorrow". British Broadcasting Corporation . Retrieved 24 May 2016. Bees can fly in light rain but will avoid it if possible. Rain weighs down bees, making their wings heavy, causing them to waste energy attempting to stay in the air. Bees capable of flying during night time have some marked differences to their day-flying relatives, including specialised eyes designed to function in darker environments. While many tropical species of bees can fly at night, only the Indian Carpenter Bee can fly in total darkness. Other species require low levels of moonlight to function. How to honey bees fly?

These winged insects, which are also called European honey bees, are the primary bee species used for honey production. Yellow and brown striped honeybees usually grow 0.5” (13 mm) long. For visual course control, flies' optic flow field is analyzed by a set of motion-sensitive neurons. [36] A subset of these neurons is thought to be involved in using the optic flow to estimate the parameters of self-motion, such as yaw, roll, and sideward translation. [37] Other neurons are thought to be involved in analyzing the content of the visual scene itself, such as separating figures from the ground using motion parallax. [38] [39] The H1 neuron is responsible for detecting horizontal motion across the entire visual field of the fly, allowing the fly to generate and guide stabilizing motor corrections midflight with respect to yaw. [40] The ocelli are concerned in the detection of changes in light intensity, enabling the fly to react swiftly to the approach of an object. [41]

While honey bees have four wings, one set of small inner wings, and a set of larger outer wings, small teeth-like structures called hamuli hold the larger and smaller wings together allowing the bee to utilise all four wings as though they had only two.

Séguy, Eugène (1924–1953). Diptera: recueil d'etudes biologiques et systematiques sur les Dipteres du Globe (Collection of biological and systematic studies on Diptera of the World). 11 vols. Part of Encyclopedie Entomologique, Serie B II: Diptera. Price, Peter W. (2005). "Adaptive radiation of gall-inducing insects". Basic and Applied Ecology. 6 (5): 413–421. doi: 10.1016/j.baae.2005.07.002. Papavero, N. (1977). The World Oestridae (Diptera), Mammals and Continental Drift. Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-94-010-1306-2. ISBN 978-94-010-1308-6. S2CID 43307061.

Yes, there are several diseases, some more serious than others. They are not infectious to humans but dangerous for the bee. Some of the most serious are AFB (American Foul Brood) and EFB (European Foul Brood), which are normally treated by destroying the colony (UK). If left untreated, they can spread throughout out the whole apiary and affect surrounding bee colonies. Spores from AFB can remain dormant for over 50 years in old beekeeping equipment and cause problems decades later. Egelhaaf, Martin (1985). "On the neuronal basis of figure-ground discrimination by relative motion in the visual system of the fly". Biological Cybernetics. 52 (3): 195–209. doi: 10.1007/BF00339948. S2CID 227306897. Behaviour can be a clue. Wasps gather animal matter to feed their larvae, such as insects, spiders and meat. None of our bees eat these things. Social wasps will also scrape wood and dead stems for nest material. But they could not flourish without their pollen being spread by bees and hundreds of species of other insects – hoverflies, wasps, moths, beetles and butterflies. Brachycera are ecologically very diverse, with many being predatory at the larval stage and some being parasitic. Animals parasitised include molluscs, woodlice, millipedes, insects, mammals, [20] and amphibians. [24] Flies are the second largest group of pollinators after the Hymenoptera (bees, wasps and relatives). In wet and colder environments flies are significantly more important as pollinators. Compared to bees, they need less food as they do not need to provision their young. Many flowers that bear low nectar and those that have evolved trap pollination depend on flies. [25] It is thought that some of the earliest pollinators of plants may have been flies. [26]

This is a swarm of honeybees gathered on a wall. There are more pictures of swarms here honeybee swarms Johnson, C.G.; Taylor, L.R.; T.R.E. Southwood (1962). "High altitude migration of Oscinella frit L. (Diptera: Chloropidae)". Journal of Animal Ecology. 31 (2): 373–383. doi: 10.2307/2148. JSTOR 2148. The name bumble bee literally means to buzz, hum, or move clumsily. This descriptive name accurately depicts their bumble behavior as they feed on flower pollen and nectar.No, bees overwinter as a strong colony clustered together, using their bodies to generate heat. This cluster is about the size of a football, with bees taking turns to be on the cold outside.

Some authors draw a distinction in writing the common names of insects. True flies are in their view best written as two words, such as crane fly, robber fly, bee fly, moth fly, and fruit fly. In contrast, common names of non-dipteran insects that have "fly" in their names are written as one word, e.g. butterfly, stonefly, dragonfly, scorpionfly, sawfly, caddisfly, whitefly. [2] In practice, however, this is a comparatively new convention; especially in older books, names like "saw fly" and "caddis fly", or hyphenated forms such as house-fly and dragon-fly are widely used. [3] In any case, non-entomologists cannot, in general, be expected to tell dipterans, "true flies", from other insects, so it would be unrealistic to expect rigour in the use of common names. Also, exceptions to this rule occur, such as the hoverfly, which is a true fly, and the Spanish fly, a type of blister beetle. Contrary to popular belief, wasps are useful to have around. Not only do they pollinate, they also hunt pests like caterpillars, aphids and planthoppers. Read more about wasps. ID tips: Bristly orange hair with dark head and thorax showing through. Males have white face hairs. Female collects pollen under abdomen. Ladybugs have a pair of hardened wings (called elytra) that protect the pair of flight wings underneath Diptera go through a complete metamorphosis with four distinct life stages – egg, larva, pupa and adult.Like bees and hoverflies the adults are pollinators. But they're not called parasitic for nothing. They lay their eggs on other insects, such as caterpillars which the resulting larvae then feed on. Apis florea and Apis andreniformis are small honey bees of southern and southeastern Asia. They make very small, exposed nests in trees and shrubs. Their stings are often incapable of penetrating human skin, so the hive and swarms can be handled with minimal protection. They occur largely sympatrically, though they are very distinct evolutionarily and are probably the result of allopatric speciation, their distribution later converging. Bees will fly throughout the day, so long as environmental conditions such as weather, temperature, and hazards permit. Muscles in the thorax of the bee cause the wings to be able to move very fast. Honey bees can flap their wings up to 230 times per second. Most species have historically been cultured or at least exploited for honey and beeswax by humans indigenous to their native ranges. Only two species have been truly domesticated: Apis mellifera and Apis cerana. A. mellifera has been cultivated at least since the time of the building of the Egyptian pyramids, and only that species has been moved extensively beyond its native range. [15] Micrapis [ edit ]