difference between "bee" and "honeybee"

Status
Not open for further replies.

keannu

VIP Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2010
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Korean
Home Country
South Korea
Current Location
South Korea
What is the difference between "bee" and "honeybee"?
When you hear "honeybee", do you think of the bees making and feeding on "honey"?
What about ordinary "bees"? Do they feed on different foods except for "honey"?
 

Rover_KE

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jun 20, 2010
Member Type
Retired English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
England
Current Location
England
That's like asking 'What's the difference between a bird and a sparrow?

Click here.

Not an apiarist.
 

GoesStation

No Longer With Us (RIP)
Joined
Dec 22, 2015
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
Honeybees don't feed on honey. They make it from the nectar they collect and feed it to their larvae. Other types of bees may also make honey, but people generally only harvest the honey made by honeybees.
 

Skrej

VIP Member
Joined
May 11, 2015
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
Not all bees produce honey, so honeybees get their name from the production of larger amounts of honey as well as beeswax. Relatively few (like 7-11 species) of the some 20,000 known bee species are classified as honeybees.

Surprisingly, while honeybees are of course highly social and live in large groups, many bees are actually solitary in nature, or live in very small groups.

The most common honeybee is the Western Honeybee. It's the most popular for beekeeping because relative to its size, it produces much more honey and beeswax than other bees (even larger bees), lives happily in artificially constructed hives, lives in large swarms (i.e. produce more honey and wax), and can be tricked into producing more honey than they need.


I'm not an apiarist either, but I have considered it. Fascinating creatures, really, and unlike wasps, will leave you alone if you leave them alone.

Wasps, however, are just a**holes.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top