The great majority of the bees hold their wings back at an angle, which is generally seen in dead bees, but almost never in live ones. If live ones do hold their wings that way, it's a sign that they're dying of a particular disease; I've never seen it. Live bees hold them right back against the abdomen, and i've yet to see a coin bee like that. I've seen coin bees with very short abdomens, which are usually seen in dried museum specimens. Sometimes (not always by any means) they're quite accurate in other respects. So some people presumably used dead bees as models, others used their imaginations. They didn't know live bees well.
