Can you believe that I couldn’t find a photo of the vulture bees which I would trust is properly identified?? So maybe the bee on the cartoon is not a proper necrophagous stingless bee, I apologize for that and if you have a photo of one of the necrophagous bee species, please share it with me!
The vast majority of bees can be considered vegans. Their food, both as larvae and as adults, come exclusively or almost exclusively from flowers. Of course, in biology exceptions are very common 😉 Probably the most notable exception from the vegan-bee-rule are three species of Trigona, called ‘vulture bees’, which feed on carrion. Their ancestors were “ordinary” bees visiting flowers but they specialized in this unusual type of food.
Bees might also feed on honeydew and human tears (which still would make them vegetarian, in contrast to the vulture bees), and maybe they’ll also be portrayed on Non-honey bees some day 🙂
Non-honey bees 