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Bee   /bi/   Listen
noun
Bee  n.  
1.
(Zool.) An insect of the order Hymenoptera, and family Apidae (the honeybees), or family Andrenidae (the solitary bees.) See Honeybee. Note: There are many genera and species. The common honeybee (Apis mellifica) lives in swarms, each of which has its own queen, its males or drones, and its very numerous workers, which are barren females. Besides the Apis mellifica there are other species and varieties of honeybees, as the Apis ligustica of Spain and Italy; the Apis Indica of India; the Apis fasciata of Egypt. The bumblebee is a species of Bombus. The tropical honeybees belong mostly to Melipoma and Trigona.
2.
A neighborly gathering of people who engage in united labor for the benefit of an individual or family; as, a quilting bee; a husking bee; a raising bee. (U. S.) "The cellar... was dug by a bee in a single day."
3.
pl. (Naut.) Pieces of hard wood bolted to the sides of the bowsprit, to reeve the fore-topmast stays through; called also bee blocks.
Bee beetle (Zool.), a beetle (Trichodes apiarius) parasitic in beehives.
Bee bird (Zool.), a bird that eats the honeybee, as the European flycatcher, and the American kingbird.
Bee flower (Bot.), an orchidaceous plant of the genus Ophrys (Ophrys apifera), whose flowers have some resemblance to bees, flies, and other insects.
Bee fly (Zool.), a two winged fly of the family Bombyliidae. Some species, in the larval state, are parasitic upon bees.
Bee garden, a garden or inclosure to set beehives in; an apiary.
Bee glue, a soft, unctuous matter, with which bees cement the combs to the hives, and close up the cells; called also propolis.
Bee hawk (Zool.), the honey buzzard.
Bee killer (Zool.), a large two-winged fly of the family Asilidae (esp. Trupanea apivora) which feeds upon the honeybee. See Robber fly.
Bee louse (Zool.), a minute, wingless, dipterous insect (Braula caeca) parasitic on hive bees.
Bee martin (Zool.), the kingbird (Tyrannus Carolinensis) which occasionally feeds on bees.
Bee moth (Zool.), a moth (Galleria cereana) whose larvae feed on honeycomb, occasioning great damage in beehives.
Bee wolf (Zool.), the larva of the bee beetle.
To have a bee in the head or To have a bee in the bonnet.
(a)
To be choleric. (Obs.)
(b)
To be restless or uneasy.
(c)
To be full of fancies; to be a little crazy. "She's whiles crack-brained, and has a bee in her head."


verb
Bee  v.  P. p. of Be; used for been. (Obs.)





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Bee" Quotes from Famous Books



... other places, make as much hay as their fields will supply for their own use, and have hit upon a singular method of stacking it. They choose some large tree, and lodge the hay in its branches, which thus piled up, assumes the appearance of an immense bee-hive. This precaution is taken to preserve the crop from the depredations of cattle, and, if more troublesome, is less expensive than fencing it round. From the miserably lean condition of many of the unfortunate animals, which their Hindu masters worship and starve, ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... despair; he has given immortality to a wagon, and the bee Sophocles has transmitted to eternity a sore toe, and dignified a tragedy ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... enthusiasm of the heaths and moors round his home, "where I have so long enjoyed the wonders of nature; never, I can honestly say, alone; because when man was not with me, I had companions in every bee, and flower and pebble; and never idle, because I could not pass a swamp, or a tuft of heather, without finding in it a fairy tale of which I could but decipher here and there a line or two, and yet found them ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... had any candy. Nobody knew how to make it. But he knew where to find the wild honey. He had found some one day in a hollow tree. He learned to track a bee home to its tree. When he found a bee-tree he robbed the swarm. Sometimes the bees stung him, but he ...
— The Tree-Dwellers • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... with similar liberality. Through these, letters, cards, packets, parcels, poured, rushed, leaped, roared into the great sorting-hall. Floods is a feeble word; a Highland spate is but a wishy-washy figure wherewith to represent the deluge. A bee-hive, an ant-hill, were weak comparisons. Nearly two thousand men energised— body, soul, and spirit—in that hall that Christmas-tide, and an aggregate of fifteen thousand eight hundred and seventy-nine hours' work was accomplished by them. They faced, stamped, sorted, carried, bundled, tied, ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne


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