Bee SVG are a treasure trove of flying insects from the Apoidea family of the Stem-belly-belly-belly winged squad, related to wasps and ants. The science of bees is called apiology.
General characteristic of Bee SVG
There are about 21,000 species and 520 species of bees. They can be found on all continents except Antarctica. Bees have adapted to feed on nectar and pollen, using nectar mainly as a source of energy and pollen to produce proteins and other nutrients.
Bees have long proboscis, which they use to suck up nectar. They also have antennae (or towels), each of which consists of 13 segments in males and 12 segments in females. There are exceptions in males: 11 (or 12) segments in antennae have some Systropha, 12 segments – some Euryglossina, Pasites, Biastes, etc.
All bees have two pairs of wings, the rear pair is smaller than the front pair; only a few species have very short wings of the same sex or caste, which makes flying a bee difficult or impossible.
Many species of bees are poorly studied. The size of bees varies from 2.1 mm in the dwarf bee (Trigona minima) to 39 mm in the Indonesian species Megachile pluto.
Bee SVG Pollination
Bees play an important role in pollination of flowering plants, being the largest group of pollinators in flower-related ecosystems. Depending on current needs, bees can concentrate on both nectar and pollen collection. In both cases, bees contribute to pollination, but in the case of pollen collection, this process is much more efficient.
The body of most bees is covered with numerous electrostatically branched nap that promotes the adhesion and transfer of pollen. From time to time they peel off the pollen, collecting it with brushes (bristle-like hairs, in most species located on the legs, and in some species on the abdomen) and then transferring it to a special basket for pollen (corbicula), located between the hind legs. Many bee species tend to collect pollen only from certain plant species, while others are less categorical and enjoy a wide variety of flowering plants. A small number of plants instead of pollen produce a nutritious floral oil, which only certain bee species specialize in. A small subgroup of non-stinging bees (Meliponini) adapted to eating falling – these are the only bees that do not eat plant products. Pollen and nectar are mixed together to form a viscous nutrient mass that forms small cells (honeycombs). Eggs of future bees are laid on top of the mass, after which the cell is hermetically sealed so that later adult bees and their larvae do not come into contact.
Bees as pollinators are extremely important in agriculture, and this leads farmers in many countries to agree with beekeepers on mutually beneficial bee breeding in the vicinity of agricultural land. Monoculture (i.e. long-term and continuous cultivation of plants of the same species on the same site) and reduction of the number of pollinated plants leads to seasonal migration of beekeepers through the territory where certain plants need to be pollinated at the right time. Bees also play a very important, though not fully understood, role in the nutrition of birds and other wildlife. Many wild bees live far from agricultural land and are sometimes victims of special programmes to kill mosquitoes, unpaired silkworms (Lymantria dispar) and other pests.
By sitting on a flower, a bee can fall prey to triatomic bugs (Triatominae) or sidewalker spiders (Thomisidae) hiding there. She could get caught by birds on the fly. Insecticides (preparations used to kill pests) can kill large numbers of bees – both directly and by polluting plant flowers. The bee uterus lays up to 2,000 eggs per day in spring, and during the honey harvest period from 1,000 to 1,500 eggs per day, only restoring the number of the family in place of the deceased individuals.
The increase in the number of bees depends both on the efficiency of the bees themselves and on their number. For example, the efficacy of wild bumblebees increases by a factor of approximately 10 in the Cucurbitaceae area and the overall efficacy of the honeybee colony increases due to the large population. On the other hand, during the early spring flowering of garden plants, the mother population of bumblebees is limited to a few individuals, so they do not play a significant role in the pollination of early fruits.
The evolution of Bee SVG
Bees, like ants, are essentially a specialized form of wasps. Ancestors of bees were predatory wasps from the family of Sand wasps (Crabronidae). The transition from an insectivorous lifestyle to pollen feeding was apparently the result of eating pollen-filled insects. A similar evolutionary scenario is observed in the superfamily of the Vespoidea (Vespoidea), one of the groups of which, known as the Masarinae (Flower wasps or mazars), is now engaged in pollination, but initially originates from a predatory ancestor.
Today, the oldest fossil of the bee is the find in Burmese amber “Hukawng Valley” (Myanmar) (described in 2006). The age of the finding is about 100 million years (early Cretaceous period), the bee species found is named Melittosphex burmensis and is a clear transitional form from predatory wasps to pollinator bees. The shape of the hind legs of M. burmensis is characteristic of the wasps of prey, but the thick hair is characteristic of the insect pollin.
The earliest pollinated plants were pollinated by other insects, such as beetles (magnolia), so that by the time the bees appeared, flower pollination had already existed in nature. What was new was that bees were fully specialized in pollination and became much more effective pollinators than beetles, flies, butterflies and other insects. It is believed that the appearance of such flower specialists has led to adaptive radiation (adaptation to systematic unidirectional changes in environmental conditions) of both flowering plants and bees themselves.