Stingless bees, sometimes called stingless honey bees or simply meliponines, are a large group of bees, comprising the tribe Meliponini (or subtribe Meliponina according to other authors). They belong in the family Apidae

Apidae

The Apidae are a large family of bees, comprising the common honey bees, stingless bees , carpenter bees, orchid bees, cuckoo bees, bumblebees, and various other less well-known groups...

, and are closely related to common honey bee

Honey bee

Honey bees are a subset of bees in the genus Apis, primarily distinguished by the production and storage of honey and the construction of perennial, colonial nests out of wax. Honey bees are the only extant members of the tribe Apini, all in the genus Apis...

s, carpenter bee

Carpenter bee

Carpenter bees are large, hairy bees distributed worldwide. There are some 500 species of carpenter bee in 31 subgenera...

s, orchid bees

Euglossini

Euglossine bees, also called orchid bees, are the only group of corbiculate bees whose non-parasitic members do not all possess eusocial behavior. Most of the species are solitary, though a few are communal, or exhibit simple forms of eusociality...

 and bumblebee

Bumblebee

A bumble bee is any member of the bee genus Bombus, in the family Apidae. There are over 250 known species, existing primarily in the Northern Hemisphere although they are common in New Zealand and in the Australian state of Tasmania.Bumble bees are social insects that are characterised by black...

s. The common name is slightly misleading, as a great many other bee species, especially in the family Andrenidae

Andrenidae

The family Andrenidae is a large cosmopolitan non-parasitic bee family, with most of the diversity in temperate and/or arid areas , including some truly enormous genera...

, are also incapable of stinging, as are all male bees.