The Abeille class was a type of 16-gun brig-corvette of the French Navy, designed by François Pestel[4] with some units refined by Pierre-Jacques-Nicolas Rolland.

[3] They were armed with either 24-pounder carronades, or a mixture of light 6-pounder long guns and lighter carronades.

Twenty-one ships of this type were built between 1801 and 1812, and served in the Napoleonic Wars.

[3] The four first ships were ordered in bulk on 24 December 1800, but two (Mouche and Serin) could not be completed due to shortages of timbers.

[2][5] As the forerunner of the series, Abeille, is not always identified as such in British sources, the type is sometimes referred to as the Sylphe class, after Sylphe, which served as model for subsequent constructions.