Thursday, May 21, 2015

A Second Look Update--Bees

What are those bees doing?

I admit that as far as bees go, I have very limited knowledge. To me anything that buzzes and looks like it could sting is a bee. But as most of you know, not everything that looks like that is a bee. Some of them are wasps. And no matter how many times I try to learn the differences between the two, I don't remember for very long what they are. So here it goes again.

A papery, yellow jacket wasp's nest that I found
in the ground while I was weeding.
Yes, I did get stung.
Bees and wasps come from the same Order, Hymenoptera. After that, they differ in their Family, Genus, and Species. (Remember the taxonomy classifications for biology?) If you can get close enough to look at them, there are some physical differences. Bees are hairy and wasps are smooth. Bees usually have a fatter and rounder abdomen than wasps. And if the buzzing insect is chasing you, it's probably a wasp. Wasps are more aggressive than bees. Find a papery nest in the ground, it belongs to a wasp. Bees make waxy hives. All bees are social insects, but not all wasps are. Some are solitary. Bees eat nectar, but wasps usually eat other insects, unless of course you have a can of soda around. And the list goes on. There are over 20,000 different species of bees and over 100,000 different kinds of wasps, so if I'm playing the odds, wasp should be my first guess when I'm trying to identify one or the other.

Even though I refamiliarized myself with some basic bee and wasp knowledge, I was at a loss to explain what I saw about a month ago during a Second Look. I saw a smaller bee/wasp attach itself to the bottom of a different kind of bee/wasp. So it was time to go for help. The first place I turned was my bee expert--a friend who raises honey bees. I sent her pictures and asked her what was going on. She had no idea, so she sent them to her local county extension agent. The extension agent had no idea what was going on either so she sent them to an entomology professor she knew at large university. He didn't have a good answer, so he showed the pictures to all of his colleagues. And none of them could give a good explanation of what they saw. 


Smaller bee with larger ones to the side


Smaller bee attached to the bottom of larger bee

However, here is the information that they did provide for what they saw in the pictures above.

The responses I have gathered from my colleagues agree that this type of interaction with carpenter bees* is unusual. Bees sometimes get in territorial disputes, but this doesn't appear to be the case in the pic.  Everyone agrees that the bee on the carpenter bee is probably not doing any harm.  Based on what they could tell from the photo, and the host plant they are on, they believe the other bee is in the genus Osmia (e.g. blue orchard bee).  Why they are interacting like this is unclear. 

So I didn't get a definitive answer to my question, but I did learn a lot while looking for an answer. Now, lets see how long I can remember it. :)

*I called the big bees bumble bees in the original post, but they're not. They are carpenter bees as evidenced by their smooth abdomen. If they had been bumble bees, this area would have been hairy. Live and learn.


But Wait There's More:
--Did you know that male bees don't sting? The stinger is a modification of an ovipositer--an egg layer, so male bees have never had one to modify. This may be common knowledge for those of you in the know, but it was fascinating news to me.

--A good paint job is a good deterrent to the carpenter bees.


Sources:
http://www.diffen.com/difference/Bee_vs_Wasp

http://animals.pawnation.com/there-kind-bee-doesnt-sting-10377.html

http://www.everythingabout.net/articles/biology/animals/arthropods/insects/bees/

And some others that disappeared when my computer crashed. :(


11 comments:

  1. I was watching the bees in our raspberry patch yesterday afternoon for a few minutes. I love watching them, but am terrified of stings.

    I've always just generically called them "bees". And if it's big, fat and fluffy, I've called them bumble bees. I guess I know better now. I didn't realize there was such a thing as carpenter bees.

    Sorry you got stung! Hope it didn't hurt too much!

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    1. Yellow jacket stings do hurt a lot, but I'm not allergic to them like my husband is. He has to be really careful.Do you have blooms in your raspberry patch?

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    2. I didn't realize that wasps vs. bee stings would be more vs. less painful. I've only been stung once, and it hurt like crazy. What are you supposed to put on a sting to reduce pain?

      Yes, our raspberry patch is just now becoming loaded with blooms, and the fluffy bees love it! I love watching them, as they seem to busy too even notice me standing there. I'm hoping this means lots of raspberries this year!

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    3. A sting is acid, so you use something basic to neutralize it. People often put a paste of baking soda on it with some ice. However, that has never been very effective for me. There is a product called AfterBite for stings and bites that is medicinal ammonia and oil in a tube with an applicator. Especially if you put this on soon after the sting, it relieves the pain pretty well. (Bee stings always hurt some though.) It also helps with mosquito bites. You could probably fix up something similar yourself, but the convenience of the applicator is worth it to me. Time is of the essence when you have just been stung.

      I just checked the price and it is ~$10/tube. That seems about double from the last time I remember buying it. However, one tube lasts us at least two years, so maybe it has gone up that much.

      Blooms and bees. That's a good formula for a bumper crop of berries. Let's hope the weather cooperates as well.

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  3. Sorry about the oops earlier. We just knocked off a bees nest outside of our home before I got too big. Live and learn is right, yellow jackets hurt. Recently someone had the part of the back of his truck infested with bees. I hope the url works https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10204372828142148&set=p.10204372828142148&type=1&theater

    justlittlecajunme.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, the URL did work. That's an impressive and scary swarm of bees on the back of that truck.

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  4. Replies
    1. That's certainly one of the first things that comes to mind. However, they are different species and the experts say no.

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  5. It is so buggy here you get to be well acquainted with the different types of critters. Wasps are generally more aggressive when you come close to one. Bees tend to back off unless you are too near their hive. Last summer TheHub ran over a yellow jacket nest with the lawnmower. (yellow jackets are ground wasps) 2 were stuck in his shirt and he is terribly allergic to them so he ran into the house to get me to help him get his shirt off. They obviously were more irritated with me than him, because he only got popped once. I got stung 4 times. They will sting you repeatedly until you get away from them or they are dead. I hope our next door neighbors got to see the hi-jinx through the windows. We were trying to knock the Instead of trying to help each other it looked like we were fighting, especially afterwards since we both got stung right under our eye and both had shiners for a couple of days.

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    1. From my experience, yellow jackets are the worst. They are the most aggressive and their stings hurt the most. Too bad the neighbors weren't filming your hi-jinx. I'm sure it would have been a hit on YouTube and you could have been famous--shiners and all. :)

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