Apoidea, Latreille, 1802

JENNINGS, JOHN T., KROGMANN, LARS & BURWELL, CHRIS, 2013, Review of the hymenopteran fauna of New Caledonia with a checklist of species, Zootaxa 3736 (1), pp. 1-53 : 42

Apoidea

In the past bees and sphecoid wasps have been considered as separate superfamilies, the Apoidea s.str. and Sphecoidea (e.g. Naumann 1991). However, there is growing phylogenetic evidence that the bees, as a robust monophyletic group, are nested inside the sphecoid wasps (e.g. Melo & Gonçalves 2005). This has been confirmed by a recent detailed molecular study by Debevec et al. (2012), which places the bees (‘Anthophila’) within the Crabronidae , which is itself paraphyletic.

Here we recognise two informal groups. The Spheciformes (=Sphecoidea) include the Ampulicidae , Crabronidae , Heterogynaidae (non-Australasian) and Sphecidae s.str.; and Apiformes including all bees (= Anthophila sensu Debevec et al. 2012) and comprising the subfamilies Apinae, Andreninae, Colletinae , Halictinae, Megachilinae, Melittinae and Stenotritinae, of which Andreninae and Melittinae do not occur in Australasia ( Michener 2000).