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How did bees evolve

It is thought that bees evolved from wasps approximately 130 million years ago, along with the rapid appearance of flowering plants.

For early plants fertilisation involved plants  releasing pollen into the air and hoping that some would reach the reproductive parts of another plant. At some point insects began to use pollen as a food source. These insects travelled from plant to plant and provided a much more efficient pollination process. To capitalise on this, and reduce the amount of pollen that they needed to produce, plants evolved features that would attract insets. These included bright colourful flowers, to make it easier for the insects to find them, and sugary nectar.

Like other insects, wasps began collect pollen and nectar. The wasps that became bees were those that stopped eating other foods and only ate nectar and pollen.

Additional Information
  1. ​The Beguiling History of Bees (Excerpt), Coulson, D., Scientific American, 2014.
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