A new study of different types of bees—bumble bees, honey bees, stingless bees, and solitary bees—offers a first look at the genetic underpinnings of their different lifestyles.
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However, specialization of the ant type (though much less extreme) was recently discovered for the first time in a bee species1. The species is Tetragonisca angustula, known to Brazilians as Jataí, and members of the species are small and stingless. The researchers noticed that, given the short 20-day lifespan of an average worker, guards station themselves at the hive entrance for an unusual amount of time. While honeybee workers guard the entrance for only a single day in their sequence of jobs, Jataí guards stay for at least five. Combined with the observation that guards appear larger than foragers (the other, larger group of bees), this led them to hypothesize that guards are a separate caste. 
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Here we provide evidence for a physical soldier subcaste in a bee.
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From
io9
Something is very wrong with the bees. Since 2006, the mysterious phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder has wiped out countless honeybee colonies throughout Europe and North America, and nobody knows why.
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