**2.1 Materials and methods**

Bees have several characteristic morphological attributes such as branched or plumose body setae and broadened metabasitarsi [5, 45]. The highly eusocial stingless bees, the Meliponini are within the corbiculate Apinae for example in [46–49]. In addition to extensive morphological and molecular data such as in [48, 50], the corbiculate apines belonging to a single group has been supported by studies investigating their internal anatomy. For example [39], noted that the proventricular morphology of Euglossini and Bombini consists of long columnar plates, triangular apices in Apini, while the Meliponini have slender and elongated plates. Accordingly, the proventriculus can be used as an important diagnostic structure for bee taxonomy [21], among a suite of other internal anatomical features [45]. The examination of such characters often requires considerable manipulation, dissection, sectioning or even complete destruction of the specimen. Thus, the practical application of such data is at times hampered by the methods employed. In the following experiment, the internal and external morphology of an ancient social bee trapped in amber using non-invasive and non-destructive DR techniques is described in detail.
