Pollen basket

Bee species with no pollen baskets have scopae, which fulfil a similar role.

Etymology

There was little formal description of the corbicula before Carl Linnaeus explained the biological function of pollen in the mid-18th century. In English the first edition of Encyclopædia Britannica described the structure in 1771 without giving it any special name. The second edition, 1777, refers to the corbicula simply as the "basket". By 1802 William Kirby had introduced the Neo-Latin term corbicula into English. He had borrowed it, with acknowledgement, from Réaumur. Like other Latin anatomical terms, this had the advantages of specificity, international acceptability, and culture neutrality. By 1820 the term pollen-basket seems to have gained acceptance in beekeeping, though a century later a compendium of entomological terminology recognised pollen-plate and corbicula without including the term pollen-basket. A century later, the authors of "Imms" included only the terms scopa and corbicula in the index, with pollen basket in the text.

Corbicula is a diminutive of corbis, a basket or pannier. It is the singular, with plural corbiculae, but since at least c. 1866 some authors have thought corbicula to be the plural of a non-existent neuter form corbiculum.