it followed me home; can I keep it?

[acroyear]

LiveScience.com - All World's Honeybees Out of Africa:

You can be stung in Rome, Moscow or Phoenix. But the honey bee is originally from Africa, scientists reported today.

By looking at variations in genetic markers from 341 bees, researchers found that the common honey bee, Apis mellifera, originated in Africa and migrated to Europe at least twice.

"The migrations resulted in two European populations that are geographically close, but genetically quite different," said lead study author Charles Whitfield from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "In fact, the two European populations are more related to honey bees in Africa than to each other."

LiveScience.com - Oldest Bee Fossil Creates New Buzz:

The discovery of the oldest bee fossil supports the theory that bees evolved from wasps, scientists reported today.

The 100 million-year-old fossil was found in a mine in the Hukawng Valley of Myanmar (Burma) and preserved in amber. Amber, which begins as tree sap, often traps insects and plant structures before they fossilize.

"This is the oldest known bee we've ever been able to identify, and it shares some of the features of wasps," said lead author George Poinar, a researcher from Oregon State University. "But overall it's more bee than wasp, and gives us a pretty good idea of when these two types of insects were separating on their evolutionary paths."

The quarter-inch fossil shares traits of the carnivorous wasp such as narrow hind legs while exhibiting branched hairs on its leg, a characteristic of the modern bee that allows pollen collection.

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