We've all eaten honey, and many of us supplement our diets by eating beneficial bee byproducts such as bee pollen. However, there are several different species of bees; which ones make honey, and what do other kinds of bees do?
There are about 25,000 identified species of bee worldwide (about 4,000 in the United States), all of which are classified under the superfamily Apoidea. These are divided into nine families, four of which are very small in terms of numbers of species.
Bee Pollen Complex
We are most familiar with a single family of bee, Apidae, which includes honey and bumblebees. Honey bees, of course, produce honey; these are social bees that live in colonies of 50,000 to 60,000 workers, 300 drones, and usually a single queen. Honey colonies are very complex in terms of behavior and overall function; these bees behave for the survival of the colony, and not for individual survival. There are ten broad types of honey worldwide, and one hybrid variety, the Africanized bee, or "killer bee." The European honey is most commonly kept by beekeepers, for the purpose of harvesting honey and bee byproducts.
Bumblebees are also from the family Apidae, but bumblebee colonies are much smaller than those of honey bees, generally hosting only a few hundred worker bees. Like honey, bumblebees are excellent pollinators of various flowers; their bodies are quite furry, trapping pollen easily as the bees move from flower to flower to eat. And bumblebees do in fact make honey, similar in texture and taste to honey from honey bees but greenish-golden in tint rather than the pure golden color of regular honey. Bumblebees make relatively small quantities of honey -- their colonies are so small -- and it is difficult to harvest, so bumblebee honey is usually not found on the market.
There are yet more members of the Apidae family, solitary rather than colonizing. Digger bees usually make their nests in the soil, rearing their young in soil tunnels; their bodies are hairy, and sometimes up to 3 centimeters long. Digger bees often nest in close proximity to each other, giving the appearance of a colony, but each female is acting independently, protecting and collecting pollen for her young. These bees are nonaggressive and will not sting unless they are trapped in clothing. Carpenter bees, on the other hand, nest in old wood; like digger bees, they are solitary, but often nest in close proximity to each other.
Leafcutter bees and mason bees are members of the Megachilidae family; they are solitary, with leafcutters making nests in hollow plant stems and ready-made holes in wood and mason bees nesting in old mortar and various crevices. With solitary bees, it is the female that mates and rears her young on her own; as with social bees, the males serve no purpose other than to mate with fertile females. Many of these solitary bees are increasingly being reared commercially for pollination purposes, especially as honey bee populations around the world are dwindling for as yet unexplained reasons.
Mining bees belong to the Andrenidae family; this family comprises thousands of species around the world. Also solitary, mining bees excavate tunnels and cells underground in which to rear their young; their tunnels are often visible as small mounds in the ground, akin to worm casts. A nest may consist of a main tunnel with five or six branches each containing an egg cell. Mining bees prefer sandy soil. They do not cause any damage to a garden, and should be welcomed as effective pollinators.
Bees of the Halictidae family are often called "sweat bees" because they are attracted by perspiration; females can give a minor sting if trapped. These nest in the ground or in wood, and they are social, though their caste system differs from that of honey or bumblebees. And the Colletidae family comprises plasterer bees, so called because they smooth the walls of their nest cells with secretions that dry into a lining resembling cellophane. These are solitary bees, found mostly in Australia and South America.
Four other bee families -- Melittidae, Meganomiidae, Dasypodaidae, and Stenotritidae -- are very small in number of species; these rare are found in Africa or Australia.
Bees are much more diverse in type and behavior than would at first appear. You are most likely to encounter honey bees and bumblebees, but most all bees are effective pollinators, and as such a valuable link in our global ecosystem.