Bumblebees and Stingless Bees
Bumblebees belong to the genus Bombus. In the tropics bumblebee colonies continue for many years, but in temperate regions the workers and the drones die in the fall. Only the young, fertilized queens live through the winter, in hibernation. In the spring they begin new colonies, often laying their eggs in the deserted nests of field mice and chipmunks. The stingless bees are chiefly tropical. Some species release a caustic liquid that burns the skin. Tetragonisca angustula, a stingless bee of the American tropics, has soldier bees, larger than the worker bees, that guard the entrances to the nests.
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