Apoidea

Apoidea
Apis mellifera, the western honeybee
Scientific classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hymenoptera
Infraorder: Aculeata
Superfamily: Apoidea
Latreille, 1802
Families

Spheciformes

Clade Anthophila

The superfamily Apoidea is a major group (of over 30 000 species) within the Hymenoptera, which includes two traditionally recognized lineages, the "sphecoid" wasps, and the bees. Molecular phylogeny demonstrates that the bees arose from within the traditional "Crabronidae", so that grouping is paraphyletic, and this has led to a reclassification to produce monophyletic families.