This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (January 2013)

Apoidea
Apis mellifera, the western honeybee
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Hymenoptera
Suborder:	Apocrita
Superfamily:	Apoidea
Series and families
Spheciformes Ampulicidae Crabronidae Heterogynaidae Sphecidae Anthophila Andrenidae Apidae Colletidae Dasypodaidae Halictidae Megachilidae Meganomiidae Melittidae Stenotritidae Incertae sedis †Melittosphecidae

The superfamily Apoidea is a major group within the Hymenoptera, which includes two traditionally recognized lineages, the "sphecoid" wasps, and the bees.

Nomenclature [edit]

Bees appear in recent classifications to be a specialized lineage of crabronid wasps that switched to the use of pollen and nectar as larval food, rather than insect prey; this presumably makes the Crabronidae a paraphyletic group. Accordingly, bees and sphecoids are now all grouped together in a single superfamily, and the older available name is "Apoidea" rather than "Sphecoidea" (which, like Spheciformes, has been used in the past, but also defined a paraphyletic group and has been abandoned).

As bees (not including their wasp ancestors) are still considered a monophyletic group, it is still convenient to use a grouping between superfamily and family to unify all bees. A few recent classifications have addressed this problem by lumping all bee families together into a single large family Apidae^{[citation needed]}, though this has not met with widespread acceptance. The alternative classification in more common use is to unite all bees under the name Anthophila (Engel, 2005), which is equivalent to the obsolete name Apiformes (which meant 'bee-like forms' in Latin).

References [edit]

• Engel, M.S. (2005). Family-group names for bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea). American Museum Novitates 3476: 1-33.
• Grimaldi, D. and Engel, M.S. (2005). Evolution of the Insects. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-82149-5. 
• Michener, C.D. (2000). The Bees of the World. Johns Hopkins University Press.

External links [edit]

Media related to Apoidea at Wikimedia Commons

• All Living Things Images, identification guides, and maps of Apoidea.
• Solitary Bees Popular introduction to the Hymenoptera Apoidea.
• Fiori e Api d'Albore and Intoppa Flower visiting bees in Europe pdf. In Italian but excellent table with Latin names.
• Native Bees of North America