Bee conservation is vital for the functioning of plant communities and human welfare. Unfortunately, bee population is declining in many parts of the world resulting in pollination crisis. The locally adapted strains, subspecies and ecotypes of Honeybees suffer less from elevated losses than non native bees Therefore, their conservation as genetic resource for breeding of disease and stress resistant strains is essential. Besides, a full understanding of origin and distribution of bees is very

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... rucial for understanding how and when these adaptations arose. Understanding the evolutionary relationships of these bees would provide a basis for behavioural studies within an evolutionary framework, illuminating the origins of complex social behaviour, such as the employment of dance and sound to communicate the location of food or shelter. In addition to a global phylogeny, would also provide estimates of divergence times and ancestral biogeographic distributions of the major groups. In this chapter we discuss the origin, taxonomic composition and patterns of distribution of honeybees. The Origins of Honeybees Fossil evidence is sparse but bees probably appeared on the planet about the same time as fl owering plants in the Cretaceous period, 146-74 mya. The evolution of bees is closely tied with a change in food from insect prey to pollen and nectar