bee

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
bee/biː/

▶noun

• 1 (also honeybee or hive bee) a stinging social insect which collects nectar and pollen from flowers and produces wax and honey. [Apis mellifera and other species.]

• 2 an insect of a large group to which the honeybee belongs, including many solitary as well as social kinds. [Superfamily Apoidea.]

• 3 a meeting for communal work or amusement: a sewing bee.

– phrases
the bee's knees informal an outstandingly good person or thing.
have a bee in one's bonnet informal be preoccupied or obsessed with something.

– origin OE bēo, of Gmc origin.