Hymenoptera

**Hymenoptera** is a large order of insects, comprising the sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants. Over 150,000 living species of Hymenoptera have been described, in addition to over 2,000 extinct ones.

Females typically have a special ovipositor for inserting eggs into hosts or places that are otherwise inaccessible. The ovipositor is often modified into a stinger. The young develop through holometabolism (complete metamorphosis)—that is, they have a worm-like larval stage and an inactive pupal stage before they mature.

The Apocrita contains a large number of families. Some traditional taxa such as the Parasitica (containing many families of parasitoid wasps) have been found on molecular analysis to be paraphyletic. Parasitoidism evolved once, and it is found today across most Apocritan families, though it has been secondarily lost several times. The phylogenetic tree gives a condensed overview of the phylogeny, illustrated with major groups. The tree is not fully resolved.

## Apocrita

The **Apocrita** are a suborder of insects in the order Hymenoptera. It includes wasps, bees, and ants, and consists of many families. It contains the most advanced hymenopterans and is distinguished from Symphyta by the narrow "waist" (petiole) formed between the first two segments of the actual abdomen; the first abdominal segment is fused to the thorax, and is called the propodeum. Therefore, it is general practice, when discussing the body of an apocritan in a technical sense, to refer to the mesosoma and metasoma (or "gaster") rather than the "thorax" and "abdomen", respectively. The evolution of a constricted waist was an important adaption for the parasitoid lifestyle of the ancestral apocritan, allowing more maneuverability of the female's ovipositor. The ovipositor either extends freely or is retracted, and may be developed into a stinger for both defense and paralyzing prey. Larvae are legless and blind, and either feed inside a host (plant or animal) or in a nest cell provisioned by their mothers.

The Apocrita have historically been split into two groups, "Parasitica" and Aculeata, but these are rankless groupings in present classifications, if they appear at all. The term Parasitica is an artificial (paraphyletic) group comprising the majority of hymenopteran insects, with respective members living as parasitoids on what amounts to nearly half of all insects, and many noninsects. Most species are small, with the ovipositor adapted for piercing. In some hosts, the parasitoids induce metamorphosis prematurely, and in others it is prolonged. There are even species that are hyperparasites, parasitoids on other parasitoids. The Parasitica lay their eggs inside or on another insect (egg, larva or pupa) and their larvae grow and develop within or on that host. The host is nearly always killed. Many parasitic hymenopterans are used as biological control agents to control pests, such as caterpillars, true bugs and hoppers, flies, and weevils.

The Aculeata are a monophyletic group that includes those species in which the female's ovipositor is modified into a stinger to inject venom. Groups include the familiar ants, bees, and various types of parasitic and predatory wasps; it also includes all of the social hymenopterans.

Among the nonparasitic and nonsocial Aculeata, larvae are fed with captured prey (typically alive and paralyzed) or may be fed pollen and nectar. The social Aculeata feed their young prey (paper wasps and hornets), or pollen and nectar (bees), or perhaps seeds, fungi, or nonviable eggs (ants).

### Beat the system

Many people are blissfully unaware of just how much suffering there is in nature. But there's one animal that seems to have the system beat. Bees.

When they are born they are cared for and pampered by nurse bees.

They have wings and can fly. They have hard exoskeletons that act like a suit of armor. They have stingers so most animals will leave them alone most of the time.

They get to eat all the sweets that they want. Nothing has to die to provide them with nourishment. They dont even take anything from plants that the plants don't want them to have.

And when food does become scarce and other animals are slowly starving to death the hive simply shrinks due to normal attrition. The dying bees simply not being replaced by new borns.

The universe wasn't designed for humans. If it was designed for anyone then it was designed for bees