Bees definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

View all »
Definitions (31)

American Heritage Dictionary (8)

noun Any of several winged, hairy-bodied, usually stinging insects of the superfamily Apoidea in the order Hymenoptera, including both solitary and social species and characterized by sucking and chewing mouthparts for gathering nectar and pollen.
noun A bumblebee.
noun A honeybee.

5 more from this dictionary »

Century Dictionary (19)

An insect of the genus Apis; a hive-bee or honey-bee. See Apis. The common honey-bee, A. mellijica, has from the earliest periods been kept in hives for its wax and honey. It is also found wild in great numbers (now especially in North America, where the bee was introduced by the European colonists), storing honey in hollow trees or in other suitable situations. It lives in swarms or societies of from 10,000 to 50,000 individuals. These swarms contain three classes of bees—the perfect females or queen bees, the males or drones, and the imperfect or undeveloped females, called neuters, constituting the working bees. In each hive or swarm there is only one female or queen, whose sole office is to propagate the species. The queen is much larger than the other bees. When she dies, a young working bee three days old is selected, its cell is enlarged by breaking down the partitions, its food is changed to royal jelly or paste, and it grows into a queen. The queen lays 2,000 eggs a day. The drones serve merely for impregnating the queen, after which they are destroyed by the neuters. These last are the laborers of the hive. They collect the honey, form the cells, and feed the other bees and the young. They are furnished with a proboscis by which they suck the honey from flowers, and a mouth by which they swallow it, conveying it then to the hive in their stomachs, whence they disgorge it into the cells. The pollen of flowers settles on the hairs with which their body is covered, whence it is collected into pellets by a brush on their second pair of legs, and deposited in a hollow in the third pair. It is called bee-bread, and is the food of the larvæ or young. The adult bees feed on honey. The wax was at one time supposed to be formed from pollen by a digestive process, but it is now ascertained that it is formed by secretion from the honey. The females and neuters have a barbed sting attached to a bag of poison, which flows into the wound inflicted by the sting. When a hive becomes overstocked a new colony is sent out under the direction of a queen bee. This is called swarming. Besides the common bee, A. mellifica, there are the A. fascicata, domesticated in Egypt; the A. ligustica, or Ligurian bee of Italy and Greece, introduced generally into apiaries in other lands; the A. unicolor of Madagascar; the A. indica, etc.
Any aculeate hymenopterous insect of the division Mellifera or Anthophila, comprising the families Apidœ and Andrenidœ, and including, besides the hive-bees of the genus Apis, the mason-bees, carpenter-bees, bumblebees, etc. See cuts under Anthophora, carpenter-bee, and Hymenoptera.
An assemblage of persons who meet to engage in united labor for the benefit of an individual or a family, or in some joint amusement: so called from the combined labor of the bees of a hive: as, a quilting-bee, a husking-bee, a spelling-bee, etc. [U. S.] Now were instituted “quilting bees,” and “husking bees,” and other rural assemblages, where, under the inspiring influence of the fiddle, toil was enlivened by gayety and followed up by the dance. Irving, Knickerbocker, p. 405.

16 more from this dictionary »

GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

WordNet (2)

Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

If ordinary bees are your business, why are they making such a strange sound What strange sound Are you denying your bees are abnormal These are perfectly normal Buckeye Superbees. — Destroyer 107: Feast or Famine
Maybe the bees are after OBAMA - they must have drank the kool-aid!!! — CNN Political Ticker
I guess the bees are also upset with Obama and his global warming taxes. — CNN Political Ticker
He considers that the bees are attracted by the scent and copious pollen and transfer viable pollen from the male flowers of the barren trees to the female flowers of the fruiting trees. — Article Source
Condition of the bees should be ascertained in the Spring. — Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee A Bee Keeper's Manual

More examples »

bees

View all »
Definitions (31)

American Heritage Dictionary (8)

Century Dictionary (19)

GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

WordNet (2)

Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

Tags

Stats

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

Add a related word »
Related

Word Family

Etymologies (0)

Pronunciations
Record your own »

Charts

Recently looked up

Recent Favorites

Recent Pronunciations

bees

View all » Definitions (31)

American Heritage Dictionary (8)

Century Dictionary (19)

GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

WordNet (2)

Elsewhere on the web

View all » Examples (50)

Tags

Stats

stop updating On Twitter

Photos from

Add a related word » Related

Word Family

Etymologies (0)

Pronunciations Record your own »

Charts

Recently looked up

Recent Favorites

Recent Pronunciations

View all »
Definitions (31)

View all »
Examples (50)

stop updating
On Twitter

Add a related word »
Related

Pronunciations
Record your own »