The honeybee is a most successful species, having succeeded in developing that vital trick - laying in stores for winter. This of course enables it to take a large population through winters in cold and challenging climates, letting it get a supercharged start when the flowers appear again in spring. This very successful behaviour has meant that it has not had to "speciate" much -there are only seven species of honey bee and one of them, our own Apis mellifera has conquered the two continents of Europe and Africa. In the UK we have only this one species of honeybee whist there are 24 species of Bumblebee and around 250 species of solitary bee.
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