Adaptation

            Melipona beecheii  are members of the Melipona genus, which consists of stingless bees. Stingless bees no longer have a functional sting at the end of the abdomen. They also are eusocial and produce honey. The bee has compound eyes and hair on the majority of its body and its six legs. (EOL 2013). Melipona beecheii has an exoskeleton as well as internal muscles like other insects and bees (Snodgrass 1956)

             Honeybees have two sets of membranous wings, with the front set being larger than the hind set. The two sets work together, and so they are linked to make sure the motion is smooth. The links are actually hooks, and the wings are not linked in the resting position. The hooks can vary in shape between the different classes, such as workers or drones, that can affect their flight ability (Snodgrass 1956).

             Melipona beecheii follow the lifecycle of other honeybees in which they hatch from eggs as larvae and then pupate into adults (EOL 2013). The bee larva looks almost nothing like an adult, and in the pupal stage it is nearly completely reconstructed. The larvae is adapted to live in the hive, so it has mouth parts but no antennae, functional legs, external wings or eyes. (Snodgrass 1956) Bees have a caste system of drones, queens and workers, where drones are males and the rest are females. The responsibilities do not overlap between the classes except in special circumstances the workers can make eggs as well as the queens. The queen gains developed ovaries but loses certain worker aspects such as food glands, pollen carrying hind legs, and specialized mandibles. The colony with the entire caste put together is biologically entity, where the different organisms can be seen as specialized organs or cells in part of a whole (Snodgrass 1956) It is expressed elsewhere that a honey bee hive resembles an organism more than any of the individuals do. (Gould and Gould 1988).

              Pollen is the main protein source in honeybees, and is carried in the hind legs mostly. Bees usually end up covered in pollen from their experience with flowers, but when they are particularly looking to take it back to the hive they use specialized compartments in their legs. These compartments are called corbiculae, and the pollen is scraped off with the middle legs once back in the hive. (Snodgrass 1956)

              Honeybees, and in turn Melipona beecheii are eusocial insects. This means that they can communicate with each other and have determined roles in their society. The main form of communication between bees is through pheromones and odors. (Gould and Gould 1988) This is supported in a study by Dr. James C. Neigh that examined a different genus of Melipona and found that they could relay to their peers a food source’s direction, distance and elevation. While it has been shown that smell is a large part of bee communication, this study in particular showed that smell wasn’t necessary to communicate. (Niegh and Roubik 1995) Bees can communicate using sound by using their wing muscles while the wings themselves are folded. This in turn causes a buzz noise instead of lift (Gould and Gould 1988)

              It has been speculated that the honeybee’s communication system is second in complexity only to our own, and greatly helps honeybees keep track of food. Bees use a number of ways to gauge where food is, and one way is energy expended. This was found by putting pieces of foil on a bee, and it turned out that the bees that communicated with those with the extra air resistance created by the tin foil were frequently overshooting their target. (Gould and Gould 1988).