top of page

Ancient Bees


Bees emerged around 130 million years ago

 

The history of bees is linked to the evolution of flowers. So, in talking about bees, we must also talk about flowers. Ancient plants used to be exclusively wind pollinated 1 2 3. Wind pollination is when pollen is blown into the air and tries to reach the female reproductive parts of another plant of the same type 4. To maximize the chance that a wind pollinated plant's pollen will reach another plant, a lot of pollen will be produced. This is not an efficient pollination system, so there was room for change.

​

Enter flying insects. Flying insects started feeding on pollen because it contains protein, fat, essential amino acids, and nutrients 5. The very first instance of insect pollination likely occurred when an insect started feeding on the pollen, had pollen grains stick to its body, and then travelled between plants of the same type leading to successful plant pollination and reproduction. Insect pollination was much more efficient for plants, so it became a primary route for pollination 6.

​

The first bees evolved from ancient wasps 7. Wasps were, and still are, predatory because they provide paralyzed prey from other smaller insects as food for their larvae. Pollen, being rich in protein, could be used by wasps to feed young or to supplement their own diet. Once a wasp fed itself and its offspring primarily on pollen and nectar, it was the first bee 3. The very first bee was likely dark coloured, small, and had very little hair along its body 3 7. 

​

 

This photo is of a bee trapped in amber taken by George Poinar at Oregon State University. This amber is over 97 million years old! The bee has five beetle larva in direct contact with it, probably visited one or more flowers before becoming trapped in the sticky resin, and shares some physical traits with modern plasterer bees 8. 

In 2020, a George Poinar published a paper identifying and examining this specimen trapped in amber. George Poinar has done extensive work examining life trapped in amber.

​


Plants and bees evolved together to become unique.

 

Over time, plants evolved characteristics, like petals and nectaries, to attract insects 3 6 9. Nectaries are tissues that secrete nectar for the purpose of interacting with animals. In turn, bees evolved various features that allowed them to better transport pollen and interact with flowers. Bees became covered in small hair so they could pick up and carry pollen from flowers more effectively 10. Some bees, like honey bees and bumble bees, evolved structures on their hind legs to carry pollen. Bees also evolved long tongues to reach deep nectaries in flowers and some bees evolved to feed on and pollinate only one, or a few types, of flowers 11.

​

Since the first bee, bees have diversified and now have a variety of unique traits. Some bees evolved to be social insects. These bees include stingless bees, honey bees, and bumble bees. Cuckoo bees have evolved over time to parasitize bees they are closely related to by laying their eggs in another species nest for the other species to raise 12. Other less well known behaviours and appearances of bees include leafcutter bees cutting out pieces of leaves using their mandibles and using them to create their nests; oil bees evolving extra long fore-legs to reach flower oil sacs deep within flowers; and orchid bees evolving to be bright metallic blues, greens, yellows, and reds.

​

 

Page information

Author: Melissa Platsko

Date published: April 3, 2022

​


References

 

 

  1. Norstog, K. (1987). Cycads and the Origin of Insect Pollination. American Scientist, 75(3), 270-279. 

  2. Wragg, P., & Johnson, S. (2011). Transition from wind pollination to insect pollination in sedges: experimental evidence and functional traits. New Phytologist, 191(4), 1128-1140. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2011.03762.x 

  3. Goulson, D. (2013). A sting in the tale (pp. 36-45). Picador.

  4. Whitehead, D. (1969). Wind Pollination in the Angiosperms: Evolutionary and Environmental Considerations. Evolution, 23(1), 28. https://doi.org/10.2307/2406479

  5. Keller, I., Fluri, P., & Imdorf, A. (2005). Pollen nutrition and colony development in honey bees: part 1. Bee World, 86(1), 3-10. https://doi.org/10.1080/0005772x.2005.11099641

  6. Pellmyr, O. (1992). Evolution of insect pollination and angiosperm diversification. Trends In Ecology & Evolution, 7(2), 46-49. https://doi.org/10.1016/0169-5347(92)90105-k

  7. Sann, M., Niehuis, O., Peters, R., Mayer, C., Kozlov, A., & Podsiadlowski, L. et al. (2018). Phylogenomic analysis of Apoidea sheds new light on the sister group of bees. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-018-1155-8

  8. Poinar, G. (2020). Discoscapidae fam. nov.(Hymenoptera: Apoidea), a new family of stem lineage bees with associated beetle triungulins in mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber. Palaeodiversity, 13(1), 1-9.

  9. Sauquet, H., Balthazar, M., Magallon, S., Doyle, J., Endress, P., & Bailes, E. et al. (2017). The ancestral flower of angiosperms and its early diversification. Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms16047

  10. Thorp, R. (1979). Structural, Behavioural, and Physiologocal Adaptations of Bees (Apoidea) for Collecting Pollen. Annals Of The Missouri Botanical Garden, 66(4), 788-812. 

  11. Nicolson, S. (2007) Nectar Consumers. In: Nicolson S.W., Nepi M., Pacini E. (eds) Nectaries and Nectar. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5937-7_2

  12. Lhomme, P., & Hines, H. (2018). Ecology and Evolution of Cuckoo Bumble Bees. Annals Of The Entomological Society Of America, 112(3), 122-140. https://doi.org/10.1093/aesa/say031

​

bottom of page