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	A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on August 18, 2009. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the social systems of some bee-eaters are the most complex of any bird, including four tiers: pair, family, clan and colony?

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I'm shocked to see this word hasn't been used at all in this article. Not that I'm an apiologist or anything, I just like the word a lot! 212.69.35.53 (talk) 15:44, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"it eminently eats bees, wasps, hornets and other insects (but it does not like flies)." Bees, wasps, and hornets are all Hymenoptera, but flies aren't. What other insects does it eat? -phma

I have searched on the web (after I found the one in the picture), but I read different lists, so I only put in what was common to most of the sites I visited. Some say it eats mosquitoes too, and, given the places where I found it, it could be, but I cannot tell it for sure. --G

This article needs citations...I can't believe this bird captures the bees in mid-air. How does it not get owned by the bees...it must be outnumbered 20-to-1 or more. I shall do some research. Meowist 21:29, 24 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bees aren't always in a swarm, and it doesn't pick on swarms, far as I know. Lots of birds capture insects in midair, bee-eaters simply specialise in the stingy kinds.Sabine's Sunbird talk 21:52, 24 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen bee-eaters sitting on branches near bee-hives, so they are certainly prepared to take bees from a swarm. Basically, they are so quick that the bees don't get a chance to protect themselves from the bird. The feeding behaviour if fully documented in Fry, Fry and Harris. Jimfbleak 06:28, 25 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I see...they sound quite amazing. This article would be positively killer with a photo (or video!) of a bee-eater in action, by the way.

If you like bee eaters you might enjoy this bee eater vs giant honey bee paper [1] Sean.hoyland - talk 04:14, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dragonflies are also on the menu. Shyamal (talk) 12:46, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The external link for the Internet Bird Collection, a very cool site, takes you to photos, videos, and sound recordings of the bee-catchers. Although there are no videos (that I saw, I looked at about 10) that show the birds capturing insects on the wing, they are shown eating bees, dragonflies, and grasshoppers. Several show the birds feeding juveniles in the nest. One bird offers an insect to others - this article call that a courtship behavior. Worth a look! Wordreader (talk) 17:08, 26 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the countries thing was partly overlinking (do people really not know what France is?) and partly a western-orientated viewpoint that tended to link eg Tajikistan, but not the US or France. All countries are equal... Jimfbleak (talk) 06:43, 17 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sabine's Sunbird,

• do you think ref 1 is adequate for an FA? Easy enough to replace with Fry, Fry & Harris if any doubt? Jimfbleak (talk) 13:32, 17 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• in citations, You have put a full stop after initials, I haven't. doesn't matter which, but we need to be consistent

All with full stops

• Do you think it's likely to be problem that we have both the on-line and print versions of HBW as refs? if so, simplest to change them all to the on-line version since they would all have the same ref.

Assumed not

• What do we still need for it to be considered comprehensive enough? Any thing general about moult?
• Images don't have to be of these birds. Could have the honeyguide in the predator section?

Update. I've added what I think is necessary for comprehensiveness, checked for duplicate links etc Jimfbleak (talk) 07:01, 25 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think the article is now about as comprehensive as we can make it without getting into excessive detail. I'm off to Lisbon for a few days, and I think we should nominate for FAC when I get back if there are no objections Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:15, 30 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sabine's Sunbird, in the absence of any caveats, I've nominated at FAC this morning Jimfbleak - talk to me? 08:18, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The article currently contains the text: "Opinions vary as to the bee-eater's nearest relatives, although the kingfishers seem the most likely,[5]" where [5] is Fry in HBW 2001. Two large studies published since 2001 include Coraciiformes in their analyses: Hackett et al. 2008 and Prum et al 2015. Unfortunately they come to different conclusions. Hackett et al 2008 find that bee-eaters are sister to all other Coraciiformes while Prum et al 2015 find that the bee-eaters are sister to the rollers. Both studies find that the kingfishers are sister to the momots which are in turn sister to the todies. I've drawn the relevant bits of the cladograms below. Prum et al 2015 note the difference but don't discuss why. (See Prum Supplementary Information p.12). We could assume that Prum is correct as more recent - but it would be good to have an independent view on this - such as the AOU committee when they reorder the families in their list.

The references are:

• Hackett, S.J.; et al. (2008). "A phylogenomic study of birds reveals their evolutionary history". Science. 320 (5884): 1763–1768. doi:10.1126/science.1157704.
• Prum, R.O.; et al. (2015). "A comprehensive phylogeny of birds (Aves) using targeted next-generation DNA sequencing". Nature. 526: 569–573. doi:10.1038/nature15697.

I suggest changing the text to something like: "Opinions vary as to the bee-eater's nearest relatives: a large study published in 2008 found that bee-eaters are sister to all other Coraciiformes while a 2015 study found that the bee-eaters are sister to the rollers." or something similar in better English. I'm definitely not suggesting including a cladogram. - Aa77zz (talk) 18:44, 14 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think maybe including them as a footnote is a good idea - we are talking about the group and its relationship to other groups. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:48, 14 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I now understand a little more about the difference in the trees. Figure 1 in Prum et al 2015 shows the cladogram drawn to scale (unlike my picture above). The Merops/(Coracias Atelornis) node occurs only a short time interval after the earlier split from the other Coraciiformes - thus there are almost three branches descending from a single node (polytomy). One branch is Merops, another is Coracias+Atelornis and the third is the rest. The different trees depend on which split occurred first - and is difficult to determine from the sequence data as it happened 52-53 million years ago. Aa77zz (talk) 22:14, 14 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The IOC list makes me think they're leaning towards Hackett. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:08, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And just to make things more confusing, jboyd mentions Mayr 2009, which groups bee-eaters with kingfishers (???) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:10, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Cas Liber, Aa77zz, it seems to boil down to "it's all so long ago, you can interpret it in almost any way" - no wonder the historians have trouble. I've rewritten the second para of taxonomy to try to reflect the problems with establishing relationships, please check and amend as you see fit. I'm reluctant to go into too much detail, and certainly no more cladograms! It was much easier in the days when we just put them all together because they were large and pretty ): Jimfbleak - talk to me? 08:07, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It is a bad idea to cite PhD theses as they are not (usually) published which means that they aren't generally available. This makes it nearly impossible to verify the information. (WP:SOURCES states the information must be published). (Actually according to worldcat Oxford University has a copy of Fry's thesis).

How about instead citing Fry's article which was published in the same year as his thesis:

• Fry, C.H. (1969). "The evolution and systematics of Bee-eaters (Meropidae)". Ibis. 111 (4): 557–592. doi:10.1111/j.1474-919X.1969.tb02567.x.

I can read the abstract but can't access the article. The wiki article states that were four species in Melittophagus. It is worth checking this number as Peters in 1945 has seven species (he lists eight but lafresnayii is now a ssp. of variegatus). Peters is available online:

• Peters, James Lee, ed. (1945). Check-list of Birds of the World. Volume 5. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 229–233.

- Aa77zz (talk) 17:50, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Aa77zz, since the point of the addition was that I was asked about other mooted genera, not specifically Melittophagus (happened to be the one I found), would it be better just to list those in Peters, with that as the open-access ref. Then I don't need the thesis or the non-free Fry paper? Jimfbleak - talk to me? 18:03, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Fry's Ibis article is an important publication as it was the first to subsume the four earlier genera into Merops as is now accepted. The article is non-free but from the summary (and the first page which I can also see) we know his conclusion "and all other bee-eaters are placed in the single genus Merops". At the bottom of the first page he states he uses the classification in Peters 1945 as his starting point (although there had been intervening publications). I suggest that the wiki article cites Peters for the four other genera (Aerops, Melittophagus, Bombylonax and Dicrocercus) and then Fry for combining them into Merops. (need an expanded range in Peters pages=229-238) (Peters already had Nyctyornis and Meropogon). - Aa77zz (talk) 18:56, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The thesis isn't relevant as it is about the biology of bee-eaters and focusses on the red-throated bee-eater. Fry's Ibis article is about the systematics and discusses the earlier classification so citing Peters isn't strictly necessary but as Peters is online I think it would be good to include. -Aa77zz (talk) 20:49, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Makes sense, I was coming round to thinking it would do no harm to give both anyway, thanks Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:02, 20 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed near-passerine to non-passerine in the first sentence of the lead. Although molecular phylogenetic studies have shown that bee-eaters and passerines both belong to the large clade Telluraves (land birds or core landbirds), they are not closely related. Bee-eaters are a member of the order Coraciiformes which is sister to the Piciformes (woodpeckers and relatives) in the clade Afroaves. Passeriformes are sister to the order  Psittaciformes (parrots) in the clade Australaves. - Aa77zz (talk) 11:43, 6 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]