I have bee bit my bottom confess, it's a huge pet peeve of mine when people call wasps and yellow jackets "bees. If bee bit my bottom allergic to bee stings, you have bee bit my bottom good reason to be afraid of bees, but for the rest of us, the benefits far outweigh the risks of these generally gentle creatures. Bees are one of the most important pollinators in the world. In fact, it would be safe to say that the human race wouldn't exist if not for bees.
Bee identification is actually relatively easy. There are both visual and behavior clues that can help you decide exactly who is buzzing in your garden. The common European Honeybee is not native to the Americas, but she was imported with European settlers and quickly made herself a vital assistant for American farmers and gardeners.
She is fuzzy and compact, and her black and yellow coloring is rather dull. Strictly vegetarian, she is bee bit my bottom one to show interest in your picnic lunch, though she may occasionally come over to investigate a brightly colored shirt.
Otherwise, she spends most of her time gathering pollen from flowers. She has only a single sting and it kills her to use it, so she will generally choose flight rather than fight, unless she bee bit my bottom her hive is threatened. She might also sting if caught, sat on, slapped at, or otherwise cornered. It should be noted that Africanized bee bit my bottom, which look very similar to the European variety, are more aggressive, particularly in defense of their nest.
Africanized bees swarm more often than European bees. I think bumble bees are cute. Much larger than honeybees, they are also even furrier, and their coloring is often brighter, though this varies from species to species.
Like honeybees, they are excellent pollinators who spend their lives visiting flowers and will not show interest bee bit my bottom human foods. Though bumble bees are capable of stinging multiple times, they are generally even less aggressive than honeybees. The exception is if their hive is threatened.
Bumble bees are commonly confused with carpenter bees, which are a similar size and form. However, carpenter bees have a shiny black butt instead of a furry striped usually one.
Though considered a nuisance by some for their habit of nesting in deadwood, including sometimes the walls or windowframes of houses or barns, carpenter bee bit my bottom are good pollinators and it is worth attempting to move them to a more suitable location, rather than killing them outright. Drone carpenter bees might appear more aggressive than the gentle females, but they are generally bee bit my bottom curious, and don't have a stinger even if they do intend harm.
The sting of the females is fairly mild, and unlikely to occur unless handled. You could almost say a yellow jacket looks more like a bee than a bee does. At any rate, they're smooth and shiny and their black and yellow stripes are bright flags yelling "bee!
Although bee bit my bottom jackets, which are really a kind of wasp, occasionally visit flowers, they are extremely inefficient pollinators because of their smoothness, and their preferred food is actually other insects and fruit.
They are considered semi-beneficial because they eat many caterpillars and other insect pests that damage crops and garden plants. However, when these natural food sources begin to decrease in late summer and fall, they become a nuisance species. They are attracted to odors that are meaty or sugary, which is why, if there's an annoying "bee" that persists in trying to steal your picnic, there's a very good chance it's actually a yellow jacket.
Yellow jackets are also known to hang around bee hives attempting to steal honey. Unlike bees, yellow jackets are aggressive and free to sting you as many times bee bit my bottom they want without injury to themselves.
Some people are allergic to yellow jacket stings, so they should bee bit my bottom treated with considerably more caution than most honeybees. There are many different varieties of wasp, with different appearances and habits. Many are carnivorous or omnivorous and are considered beneficial due to their taste for common garden pests such as caterpillars. Wasps are generally smooth-bodied and shiny, with much less compact bodies than bees. For example, you might barely notice the legs of a bee when it is flying, but the legs of a wasp trail down behind it in flight very noticeably.
Wasps also often have very narrow waists, and the term "wasp-waisted" was used in Victorian times for a certain type of silhouette that underwent several bee bit my bottom of popularity and resembled the segmented body of bee bit my bottom wasp: Wasps look terrifying, with their long spidery legs and evil looking faces, but most are actually quite gentle.
The primary exception, as with many bees, is the social wasps, if they feel their nest is threatened. If you have a caterpillar problem, a nest of hornets might be the best thing that ever happened to your garden, but whatever you bee bit my bottom, DON'T try to move it!
Those ladies are mean when angry and quite happy to sting you a hundred times each if they can. North America has many native solitary bees. These bees are usually less aggressive than social bees, because they do not have a hive to defend. Bee bit my bottom are also excellent pollinators and there is growing interest in their use as alternative pollinators due to Colony Collapse Disorder and other problems afflicting domesticated and feral honeybees.
Most bee bit my bottom completely harmless to humans. Sign in or sign up and post using a HubPages Network account. Comments are not for promoting your articles or other sites.
KathleenC, you know it almost sounds like something I ran into. One bee bit my bottom day I was driving in Northern Virginia with my windows down, and this huge yellow-jacket looking thing flew in my car and started crawling around, so I immediately parked my car in a Wells Fargo parking lot and got the hell out.
From the way I remember it, which I still remember quite vividly, the thing was as long as my index finger and the coloration of the smooth exo-skeleton was bright yellow with typical yellow jack black patterns. What was really interesting, or perhaps baffling about this bug was that, the diameter of its body was torso.
It also didn't look like a wasp or hornet in that the head didn't look like a separate peripheral, but part of the torso. Visually, it resembled the diameter of a thumb, narrow at the ends, and the length of an index finger. I just came across something that terrified me. Looks exactly like a yellow-jacket but the body is easily 3x normal length.
I was watering plants and spritzed it to knock it down. Anyone have any ideas what this thing might be? Toronto Ontario - 55 yrs and I've never seen anything like this before. Just overnight we have several holes by our sidewalk to the front door. I saw a slender body black wasp? Not sure but it had two yellow stripes and the legs and feet were red in color. They are burroughing in our mulch, beside the sidewalk in Northern Indiana fort Wayne Indiana to be exact.
What are they and what does this mean? I share your feelings that honeybees are having a hard time and need all the help and support they can get. As a letter carrier I have never had bee bit my bottom problems with these bees. If they are buzzing one some flowers next to a mailbox I let them do their job while I do mine, and everyone goes about their job in peace.
I do hate yellowjackets, however, ever since I dug one up in the yard as a little boy. Do they next in the ground? I must have stumbled across a nest. They give me the creeps. I was not aware there were so many different kinds, I always just thought bee bit my bottom them as 'bees'. Love that you learn something new every day here on Hub Pages. Grat hub but I'm scared of bees,yellow jakets,hornets,and bee bit my bottom actually to tell the truth im scared of bee bit my bottom bug!!!
There my worst nightmare and there everywhere!!! I have to check my room every night every cm and if there is a bug I call somebody to get it!! Now bee bit my bottom I can catch a bug on my own: God plz help me!!!! I never knew that yellow jackets weren't bees. Voted up and useful and shared. My daughter was stung tonight by a black bug that flew through our window in drive thru.
She cried horribly and she is only 8 months. Similar to horse fly. That may be what you saw at the pool. I found a giant insect in my yard,the markings on the body looked like a yellow jacket but the legs were red,the head was yellow jacket looking but about four times the head of a yellow jacket,and it was big,the body was about two inches with a large wing span,any ideas as to what it is? I have lately been feeling as if I am a prisoner of my own home. I am very big on being outdoors even in the triple digits we've been having lately.
Moral is I'm very frustrated that I am being ran in by what I think are yellow jackets. The only thing is I can't positively ID them cause the markings don't match exactly what they should. They seemed to just have all of a sudden shown up over the last 2 weeks. At first they didn't seem too aggressive just many hovered in the trees above. Some swarming in and out and others just sitting on leaves watching us like guards. As the week has gone on they began flying around more swooping at us.
As the days go by they seem to be brodening their territory and are much more aggressive to the point that cleaning the pool I need a second pair of eyes to guard myself. I have been watching from a distance and can not pin point where a nest may be.
As many as there are and how ugly there being there has to be a nest close. Its hard to deal with something your not sure about ID and cant find a nest. Its almost like they have no nest they've just taken up residency in the trees and are guarding the whole property. Ugh what to do what to do
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