inside: How can you tell the difference between a bee hive and a wasp hive? Here are some tips to help you decide.
Let’s face it. With a few exceptions, we usually don’t notice nests. lone bee and wasp. Solitary insects live alone and protect themselves, so they are seldom aware of their existence, let alone their nests.
But social creatures such as honeybees, bumblebees, yellow hornets, and hornets live big. In fact, we can’t help but notice their huge colonies and terrifying dwellings. Wow! A lot of needles are gathered in a small place.
Sometimes I find a nest and want to know if it belongs to a bee or a wasp. With training, most people can quickly distinguish between them. So let’s take a look at their similarities and differences.
Large social colonies require large nests
Sociable bees and wasps raise large families, so each builds a nest with many small compartments suitable for babies. Imagine a maternity ward with rows and rows of baskets and you’ll get the idea. Most people recognize a beehive because each beeswax cell (hive) has a distinctive hexagonal shape.
However, some wasps build nests that suspiciously resemble beehives. These may be hanging from the branches of trees or from the eaves of your house. Depending on the type of wasp, it may be cemented directly into the wall of the building.
People often confuse these nests because they are very similar in their interconnected cell aggregates. Most of the time, when a person sees a wasp’s nest, he immediately believes that there are bees there, rather than the other way around. That’s not surprising. Because we equate the word “bee” with “stinging insect,” much of the behavior of wasps is blamed on bees.
So how can you tell the difference between similar nests?
Is it a beehive or a wasp’s nest?
To distinguish between wasp nests and bee nests, you can check the nest cover, location, size, composition, and season. Needless to say, the residents also check. Let’s look at each.
Bee and wasp nest coverings are different
Bees rarely nest in the open in cold, temperate climates. So-called field colonies sometimes occur, but they are rare. Most commonly, bee colonies nest in enclosures such as wooden hives, tree cavities, meter boxes, and attics. A covered space protects you from the weather and predators.
Some wasps cover their nests, but the covering is homemade. That is, they build it themselves instead of finding it. For example, some wasps hang from trees and make large gray balloons that look like piñatas. To make them, worker bees collect and chew wood fibers and add saliva-like secretions. The paste is then shaped into the desired shape and dried to harden in place.
The cartoon “Bee’s Nest”, with smiling and friendly “bees” hanging from branches, is probably modeled after a hornet’s nest. Bees don’t make things like that.
Inside the balloon, workers build a series of combs to raise the chicks. Curiously, these combs do not hang vertically like a beehive. Instead, they are stacked like pancakes, with “wasp space” between each.
some nests have no cover
Bees that nest outdoors do not put up a cover over the hive. This is the main reason why these colonies rarely overwinter. Similarly, many solitary nesting wasps build uncovered nests, some affixed to surfaces and some hanging from “stalks” like upside-down mushrooms.
However, unlike bee hives, this free-standing wasp hive does not need to overwinter. In autumn, the nest is abandoned forever. When you find a single, uncovered nest hanging from a central stem, you can be sure it belongs to a lone wasp. Lonely mothers have everything they can do without making a cover for the nursery. She compensates for that by choosing a spot that is already sheltered from the weather, such as the eaves of her verandah.
Composition: wax comb and fiber comb
As mentioned earlier, bees lay their eggs inside cells made of beeswax. This wax oozes from her eight glands under the bee’s abdomen and is molded into the proper shape by the worker bees.
However, wasps do not produce wax. Instead, they use the same material as their nest covering—wood and plant fibers chewed into a paste—to create cells for reproduction. So if the comb you find feels like paper instead of waxy, you’ve run into a wasp.
Consider nest location
Compared to other nest features, the location is not very obvious. Bees typically choose interior spaces such as dedicated hives, attics, meter boxes, and even inside posts. I’ve also found it in beer coolers, theaters, and under decks. Bees are picky eaters and go to great lengths to find the “right” space.
Wasp colonies prefer tall tree branches, but they also like eaves, overhangs, barns, garages and sheds. One year I discovered a large aerial yellowfin nest inside a flowerpot-shaped flock trap. This proves that bees and wasps have similar housing preferences.
Bumblebee nest structures vary widely, but many people report finding bumblebee nests in small cozy spaces such as mailboxes, discarded mattresses, mole holes, and compost bins. If you find a nest in such a small area, it’s definitely possible that a bumblebee has invaded it.
Nest size varies with season
The population within the colony varies over time. The number of wasp nests increases from spring to autumn. They get bigger too. In fact, in North America, wasp populations are low in the spring and spike in the fall.
However, the bee population is the opposite. Bee populations increase in the spring and decline in the summer and fall.
Bee populations surge in the spring, especially when colonies overwinter. This is important for bees. This is because bees need large numbers of worker bees to gather enough food to carry the entire colony through the next winter.
However, wasp colonies do not overwinter. Only the queen bee hibernates, and in the spring they start building colonies from scratch. Starting over means it takes time for the wasp colony to start moving. By the time the wasp colony becomes very large, the bee colony is shrinking. And that’s what makes wasps dangerous to bees. Wasps see bee colonies, especially vulnerable colonies with low guards but abundant honey, as juicy and abundant sources of food.
Don’t forget to do a tenant survey
Finally, don’t forget to check who lives in the nest. If I find a lone wasp hanging in the eaves, I usually leave it alone unless it’s right over the doorway. But large colonies of yellow hornets and wasps can cause problems later on, so I try to prevent them.
If you can’t tell the difference between a wasp and a bee, look for hairs. Most bees are hairy or furry and have traits that help them collect pollen. Wasps have no hair, so they are shiny.
Pollen is usually indicative of bees, as it is collected in a globule or attached to the body of the insect. However, both bees and wasps suck nectar from flowers, so foraging on flowers alone is not enough to distinguish them.
The more you know, the better you can do
As with many other issues related to beekeeping, learning how to identify hives in your area can also help you become a more successful beekeeper. Being able to recognize a forming social wasp colony allows proactive measures to be taken to protect the nest before fall.
Rusty
honeybee suite