Yellowjacket or yellow jacket is the common name in North America for predatory social wasps of the genera Vespula and Dolichovespula. Members of these genera are known simply as "wasps" in other English-speaking countries. Most of these are black and yellow like the eastern yellowjacket Vespula maculifrons and the aerial yellowjacket Dolichovespula arenaria; some are black and white like the bald-faced hornet, Dolichovespula maculata. Others may have the abdomen background color red instead of black. They can be identified by their distinctive markings, their occurrence only in colonies, and a characteristic, rapid, side-to-side flight pattern prior to landing. All females are capable of stinging. Yellowjackets are important predators of pest insects.
The Bombyliidae are a family of flies. Their common name are bee flies or humbleflies. Adults generally feed on nectar and pollen, some being important pollinators. Larvae generally are parasitoids of other insects.
Carpenter bees are species in the genus Xylocopa of the subfamily Xylocopinae. The genus includes some 500 bees in 31 subgenera. The common name "carpenter bee" derives from their nesting behavior; nearly all species burrow into hard plant material such as dead wood or bamboo. The main exceptions are species in the subgenus Proxylocopa; they dig nesting tunnels in suitable soil.
With over 850 species, the genus Nomada is one of the largest genera in the family Apidae, and the largest genus of kleptoparasitic "cuckoo bees." Kleptoparasitic bees are so named because they enter the nests of a host and lay eggs there, stealing resources that the host has already collected. The name "Nomada" is derived from the Greek word nomas, meaning "roaming" or "wandering."
The Stenotritidae is the smallest of all formally recognised bee families, with only 21 species in two genera, all of them restricted to Australia. Historically, they were generally considered to belong in the family Colletidae, but the stenotritids are presently considered their sister taxon, and deserving of family status. Of prime importance is that the stenotritids have unmodified mouthparts, whereas colletids are separated from all other bees by having bilobed glossae.
The genus Halictus is a large assemblage of bee species in the family Halictidae. The genus is divided into 15 subgenera, some of dubious monophyly, containing over 200 species, primarily in the Northern Hemisphere. Most species are black or dark brown, sometimes metallic greenish-tinted, with apical whitish abdominal bands on the terga.
The genus Agapostemon is a common group of Western Hemisphere sweat bees, most of which are known as metallic green sweat bees for their color.
The cosmopolitan bee genus Ceratina, often referred to as small carpenter bees, is the sole lineage of the tribe Ceratinini, and closely related to the more familiar carpenter bees. They make nests in dead wood, stems, or pith, and while many are solitary, a number are subsocial, with mothers caring for their larvae, and in a few cases where multiple females are found in a single nest, daughters or sisters may form very small, weakly eusocial colonies. One species is unique for having both social and asocial populations, Ceratina australensis, which exhibits all of the pre-adaptations for successful group living. This species is socially polymorphic with both solitary and social nests collected in sympatry. Social colonies in that species consist of two foundresses, one contributing both foraging and reproductive effort and the second which remains at the nest as a passive guard. Cooperative nesting provides no overt reproductive benefits over solitary nesting in this population, although brood survival tends to be greater in social colonies. Maternal longevity, subsociality and bivoltine nesting phenology in this species favour colony formation, while dispersal habits and offspring longevity may inhibit more frequent social nesting in this and other ceratinines.
Mass provisioning is a form of parental investment in which an adult insect, most commonly a hymenopteran such as a bee or wasp, stocks all the food for each of her offspring in a small chamber before she lays the egg. This behavior is common in both solitary and eusocial bees, though essentially absent in eusocial wasps.
Trachusa perdita, the California leafcutting bee, is a species of bee in the family Megachilidae.
The Allodapini is a tribe of bees in the subfamily Xylocopinae, family Apidae. They occur throughout sub-Saharan Africa, South East Asia, and Australasia. There is also a rare genus, Exoneuridia, that occurs in isolated regions of Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon and Iran.
Amegilla bombiformis, commonly known as the teddy bear bee or golden haired mortar bee, is an Australian native bee in the family Apidae.
Xylocopa aerata, the golden-green carpenter bee or green carpenter bee, is one of two species of carpenter bee found only in the conservation areas around Sydney, and in the Great Dividing Range in New South Wales in Australia. Its only other habitat as of 2020 is on Kangaroo Island in South Australia. The species is especially vulnerable to fire, and much of its habitat was burnt during the 2019-2020 bushfire season in Australia.
Sphecodopsis is a genus of cleptoparasitic "cuckoo" bees in the family Apidae. Endemic to southern Africa, the wasp-like bees of this genus are generally small, varying from 3.9 to 9 mm in length, and mostly black, with orange-ish or reddish colouring of the metasoma in some of the species. The bee genus Scrapter is recognised as a host for the cleptoparasitic life cycle of some Sphecodopsis, but further data regarding preferred hosts is not available for most of the species.
Coelioxys, common name leaf-cutting cuckoo bees or sharp-tailed bees , is a genus of solitary kleptoparasitic or brood parasitic bees, belonging to the family Megachilidae.
Tetragonula is a genus of stingless bees. In 1961, Brazilian bee expert J.S. Moure first proposed the genus name Tetragonula to improve the classification system by dividing the large genus Trigona stingless bees into 9 smaller groups. About 30 stingless bee species formerly placed in the genus Trigona are now placed in the genus Tetragonula. These bees are found in Oceania, in countries such as Australia, Indonesia, New Guinea, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka, and the Solomon Islands. The most recent tabulation of species listed 31 species.
Calliopsis is a genus of panurgine bees in the family Andrenidae. There are over 80 described species distributed throughout the western hemisphere.
Epeolus is a genus of cuckoo bees of the tribe Epeolini, the subfamily Nomadinae part of the honey bee family Apidae. They are often known as variegated cuckoo-bees.
Augochlorella is a genus in the bee family Halictidae, commonly called sweat bees. They display metallic coloration, ranging from reddish to gold to bluish green, as is typical for other genera in the tribe Augochlorini.
Euherbstia is a genus of mining bees in the family Andrenidae. The only species in this genus is Euherbstia excellens, which is endemic to Chile.
