Bees and Wasps
- Bees and wasps are actually beneficial social insects Bees have fuzzy / hairy bodies; wasps don't.
- Bees feed on pollen and nectar from flowers. Wasps usually feed on other insects or spiders.
- Bees can only sting one time because they have a barbed stinger, which pulls out the stinger, poison gland and guts. Wasps are able to sting repeatedly since they do not have a barbed stinger.
Some of their species include:
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A. Paper Wasps
- Paper wasps receive their name from the paper-like nest they build. These nests can be found under the eaves of houses, under branches of trees and shrubs, under decks or inside pipes.
- Paper wasps do not have a caste system with a sterile worker class. There is one dominant female, which lays eggs, and the others tend to the young. The dominant female is usually the nest initiator.
- This species of wasps is variable in color. They can be brown, black, orange or yellow. In addition, their bodies may or may not have stripes.
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B. Yellow Jackets
- Yellow jackets can nest in wall voids, attics, in trees and shrubs, or in the ground.
- They are social insects. They have a worker caste that cares for the young and forages for food.
- Adult yellowjackets will feed on fruit and nectar from plants while the larvae are fed insects or carrion.
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C. Honey Bees
- Honey bees are very important in pollination of crops.
- Honey bees are social insects that live in colonies. There is a queen that is responsible for producing eggs. The worker caste is made up of sterile females who build and repair the nest, forage for food and tend to the young. Males are called drones and are produced for mating with reproductive females.
- Honey bees are small and fuzzy. They are usually yellow and black striped.
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D. Carpenter Bees
- These bees are large and often confused with bumble bees. Bumble bees are fuzzy with yellow and black coloration.
- Carpenter bees have a fuzzy head and thorax that are colored yellow and black .
- These bees are solitary and create their nest in wood.
- They create the galleries by chewing through the wood with their mandibles. The carpenter bee will place "bee bread", a mix of pollen and nectar, in the gallery and then lay an egg. Once the egg hatches, the larvae will feed on the bee bread.
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