Black slender-stingless bee

Frieseomelitta nigra

Its dark wings have little white tips.

Lives in

Mexico, Belize and maybe Guatemala, in warm forests and scrubland

Length

6 mm (0.24 in)

about

Top speed

about 16 km/h (9.9 mph)

Can it hurt you?

Harmless

What does it eat?

It visits flowers for nectar and pollen. It helps plants like lemon, coconut and melon to make fruit.

How big is it?

small enough to sit on your fingernailcould fly across a whole football pitch in 24 secondsmoves 740 times its own body length every second

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)

Black slender-stingless bee about 16 km/h (9.9 mph)

A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)

A car driving in town about 50 km/h (31 mph)

cool stuff

It builds its nest in holes in trees, and sometimes in lampposts and walls.

It covers its nest with sticky resin from plants.

People keep it in hives for its honey.

It likes warm places, from wet forests and dry forests to cloud forests and wetlands.

Frieseomelitta nigra (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
Picture by Oscar Alejandro Morales Juárez. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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