Study challenges widely held assumption of bee evolution

A new study rewrites a commonly cited hypothesis about bee evolution and the cause behind an explosion in diversity of bee species some 120 million years ago.

Today, bees are incredibly diverse, accounting for around 20,000 species, with nearly all larvae consuming a diet of flower pollen and nectar.

Researchers have widely believed that bees evolved from carnivorous wasps and that pollen feeding, called pollinivory, allowed bees to rapidly diversify. The idea was that the new food source promoted new species to develop. But no one had tested this hypothesis, until now.