--- title: Bees beyond the hive: bumblebees, solitary bees, carpenter bees and stingless bees — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Bees beyond the hive: bumblebees, solitary bees, carpenter bees and stingless bees», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: When people say «bee» they often picture a honeybee hive, but there are about 20,000 ki --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/305-bees-beyond-the-hive-bumblebees-solitary-bees-carpenter-bees-and-stingless-bees/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Bees beyond the hive: bumblebees, soli… # Bees beyond the hive: bumblebees, solitary bees, carpenter bees and stingless bees Lesson 305 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 18 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/305-bees-beyond-the-hive-bumblebees-solitary-bees-carpenter-bees-and-stingless-bees/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/305-bees-beyond-the-hive-bumblebees-solitary-bees-carpenter-bees-and-stingless-bees/0/) — When people say «bee» they often picture a honeybee hive, but there are about 20,000 kinds of bee and most of them live alone, each female building her own little nest. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/305-bees-beyond-the-hive-bumblebees-solitary-bees-carpenter-bees-and-stingless-bees/1/) — On a cold spring morning a fat furry bumblebee queen is often the first bee out. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/305-bees-beyond-the-hive-bumblebees-solitary-bees-carpenter-bees-and-stingless-bees/2/) — She shivers her flight muscles to warm up, and her fur keeps the heat in, so she can fly when honeybees stay at home. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/305-bees-beyond-the-hive-bumblebees-solitary-bees-carpenter-bees-and-stingless-bees/3/) — Look at a bee hotel of hollow stems in a garden: a red mason bee fills each stem with a row of rooms, each with pollen and one egg, walled off with mud. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/305-bees-beyond-the-hive-bumblebees-solitary-bees-carpenter-bees-and-stingless-bees/4/) — Leafcutter bees wrap their rooms in neat circles cut from rose leaves. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/305-bees-beyond-the-hive-bumblebees-solitary-bees-carpenter-bees-and-stingless-bees/5/) — Every bee has four wings, joined in flight by tiny hooks, and only females can sting, because the sting is a changed egg-laying tube. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/305-bees-beyond-the-hive-bumblebees-solitary-bees-carpenter-bees-and-stingless-bees/6/) — Some bees in warm countries can hardly sting at all and bite instead. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/305-bees-beyond-the-hive-bumblebees-solitary-bees-carpenter-bees-and-stingless-bees/7/) — Bumblebees shiver their flight muscles to warm up, and their fur keeps the heat in, so they fly in cool weather; queen bumblebees are often the first bees seen in early spring. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/305-bees-beyond-the-hive-bumblebees-solitary-bees-carpenter-bees-and-stingless-bees/8/) — The old story that scientists «proved» bumblebees cannot fly came from a rough sum treating a bee wing like a stiff aeroplane wing; real bee wings flap about 200 times a second and make tiny whirlwinds that give lift. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/305-bees-beyond-the-hive-bumblebees-solitary-bees-carpenter-bees-and-stingless-bees/9/) — In buzz pollination a bumblebee vibrates its muscles to shake pollen out of flowers like tomatoes, whose pollen is held in tubes; greenhouse tomato farmers often keep boxes of bumblebees. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/305-bees-beyond-the-hive-bumblebees-solitary-bees-carpenter-bees-and-stingless-bees/10/) — Bumblebee colonies are small, often a few dozen to a few hundred bees; only the new queens survive the winter, sleeping underground, and in spring each queen starts a new nest alone. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/305-bees-beyond-the-hive-bumblebees-solitary-bees-carpenter-bees-and-stingless-bees/11/) — Most of the world's 20,000 or so kinds of bee live alone; each female digs or builds her own nest and leaves food for each egg, and mining bees may nest close together like a village. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/305-bees-beyond-the-hive-bumblebees-solitary-bees-carpenter-bees-and-stingless-bees/12/) — Red mason bees fill hollow stems with a row of cells, each with pollen and an egg, sealed by mud walls; eggs that become males are laid nearest the door, and the front bees come out first in spring. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/305-bees-beyond-the-hive-bumblebees-solitary-bees-carpenter-bees-and-stingless-bees/13/) — Leafcutter bees cut neat circles from leaves to wrap each egg and its food like a parcel; they do not eat the leaves, and the plant barely notices. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/305-bees-beyond-the-hive-bumblebees-solitary-bees-carpenter-bees-and-stingless-bees/14/) — Carpenter bees chew tunnels in wood for their nests and push the sawdust out instead of eating it; the violet carpenter bee is one of Europe's biggest bees and has been reported spreading into Britain. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/305-bees-beyond-the-hive-bumblebees-solitary-bees-carpenter-bees-and-stingless-bees/15/) — Stingless bees live in warm countries like Brazil, Mexico and Australia; their stingers are tiny and useless, so they defend by biting and crowding intruders, and the Maya kept them for honey long before Europeans reached America. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/305-bees-beyond-the-hive-bumblebees-solitary-bees-carpenter-bees-and-stingless-bees/16/) — Only female bees have a sting, because the sting is a changed egg-laying tube; male bees cannot sting, and most solitary bees rarely sting, with mild stings. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/305-bees-beyond-the-hive-bumblebees-solitary-bees-carpenter-bees-and-stingless-bees/17/) — Bees have four wings, but a row of tiny hooks joins each front wing to the back wing in flight, so each pair works like one big wing. - ← previous: [Ants of the world: weaver ants, bullet ants, honeypot ants and trap-jaw ants](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/304-ants-of-the-world-weaver-ants-bullet-ants-honeypot-ants-and-trap-jaw-ants/) - next →: [Beetles: the biggest group of animals on Earth, wing cases and six legs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/306-beetles-the-biggest-group-of-animals-on-earth-wing-cases-and-six-legs/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)