bee

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Other forms: bees

A bee is a fuzzy, buzzing insect that flies and sometimes stings. Many flower gardens are especially planned to attract bees.

Bees have two pairs of wings and a long tongue-like proboscis that's used for collecting nectar from flowers. Bees are vital in the health of many plants, because they help to pollinate them, spreading pollen so they can reproduce and spread. Some bees also make honey. Because bees appear to be constantly moving and buzzing, since the mid-1500's they'e been equated with hard workers, as in the phrases "worker bee" and "busy as a bee."

Definitions of bee

1. noun

   any of numerous hairy-bodied insects including social and solitary species
   types:

   drone

   stingless male bee in a colony of social bees (especially honeybees) whose sole function is to mate with the queen

   Apis mellifera, honeybee

   social bee often domesticated for the honey it produces

   carpenter bee

   large solitary bee that lays eggs in tunnels bored into wood or plant stems

   bumblebee, humblebee

   robust hairy social bee of temperate regions

   cuckoo-bumblebee

   a bee that is parasitic in the nests of bumblebees

   andrena, andrenid, mining bee

   a bee that is a member of the genus Andrena

   Nomia melanderi, alkali bee

   a common solitary bee important for pollinating alfalfa in the western United States

   leaf-cutter, leaf-cutter bee, leaf-cutting bee

   bee that cuts rounded pieces from leaves and flowers to line its nest

   mason bee

   any of numerous solitary bees that build nests of hardened mud and sand

   potter bee

   solitary bee that builds nests of mud or pebbles cemented together and attached to a plant

   Africanized bee, Africanized honey bee, Apis mellifera adansonii, Apis mellifera scutellata, killer bee

   a strain of bees that originated in Brazil in the 1950s as a cross between an aggressive African bee and a honeybee; retains most of the traits of the African bee; now spread as far north as Texas

   German bee, black bee

   dark-colored ill-tempered honeybee supposedly of German origin

   Carniolan bee

   greyish highly productive European honeybee that has a quiet disposition

   Italian bee

   yellowish honeybee resembling the Carniolan bee in its habits

   type of:

   hymenopter, hymenopteran, hymenopteron, hymenopterous insect

   insects having two pairs of membranous wings and an ovipositor specialized for stinging or piercing
2. noun

   a social gathering to carry out some communal task or to hold competitions
   types:

   quilting bee

   a gathering to make quilts

   cornhusking, husking bee

   a social gathering for the purpose of husking corn

   type of:

   social affair, social gathering

   a gathering for the purpose of promoting fellowship