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For most people if it can sting you it is a bee. Honeybees have gotten a bad rap. They get the blame for every stinging insect. Actually, honeybees are quite docile and will only sting you as a last resort. You will generally find honeybees peacefully flying around flowers. Sometimes you will find them near your pool or around a water source. They are simply getting a drink. You leave them alone and they will leave you alone. Honeybees are not as yellow as yellow jackets. Honeybees are more golden in color. Bumblebees are those black and yellow fuzzy bees you find in your flower garden. They too are relatively harmless. Often you can identify bumble and honey bees because they have a "basket" of pollen packed on their back legs. As a beekeeper I have found honeybees very fascinating. Their hives are well ordered and efficient. Everyone has a different role. There are guard bees, nurse bees, worker bees, scout bees, almost any job you can imagine is found in a hive. By the way, the bees that you normally will see are female. Honeybees have a barbed stinger that will stick in you when you are stung. Unless you are using them for therapy for arthritis, it is best to remove the stinger as quickly as possible. If you don't, it will continue to pump painful venom into you. Honeybees are the only stinging creatures, I believe, to have a barbed stinger. They give their life for the sake of their hive. Male bees or drones cannot sting. The queen bee has a stinger but generally uses it only for fighting other queens who may be challenging her queendom. Yellow jackets are, as the name implies, yellow. They have black markings. The markings tell you what kind of yellow jacket they are. There are different varieties in Connecticut. For those of you who enjoy names there are; Vidua, Vulgaris, Flavopilosa, Germanica (both axanthic and melanic) and Maculifrons. These are the kind you will find in the ground or in your house. They make concealed nests. Arenaria will make a ball paper nest just like the bald-faced hornet (Maculata). These are not concealed nests. You will find these nests under the eves of your house or on a tree or pasted to the side of a building. Don't confuse these with the little wasp nest you find around your house. The way to tell the difference is that wasps keep an open nest and the others make a ball nest. The bald-faced hornets are big and nasty. All yellow jackets are aggressive but it seems the bald-faced hornets pack a bigger wallop when they sting. Believe me I know. I have gained a great appreciation and respect for yellow jackets and hornets. They are also well ordered and hard working. They have the different classes of workers as do bees but they look for different goodies. Yellow jackets and hornets do not make honey. They generally do not bother with flowers. They are looking for protein like insects or your hamburger. Old time Farmers liked to have bald-faced hornets on their farm because they helped keep the fly population down. Often when I am collecting I see the yellow jackets and hornets come home with pieces of meat and insects. Yellow jackets are very curious. As spring comes and summer ripens you may be visited by a lone yellow jacket flying near your face. Please take my advice and freeze. They are simply looking at you. When you swat at them this triggers their attack mode and you can get stung. And unlike the honeybee, they can sting repeatedly. When they come around my children I instruct them to close their eyes and freeze. After the yellow jacket has had a good look at you and decided you are too big to take home to the babies, they will move on. If you can't freeze, slowly move away. Whatever you do don't swat it. You'll be sorry. If you find a yellow jacket or bald-faced hornet nest around your home, contact us immediately. I collect them for a medical lab that uses the venom for sting allergic patients. Please don't spray the nest. Insecticides are dangerous to YOU and to the environment. You may kill a paper nest this way and increase your risk of cancer. I doubt you'll kill a concealed nest by spraying. All you will be doing is sending deadly fumes into your home or into the air. I will come as soon as I can and vacuum out the majority of the yellow jackets from concealed nests. If it is a ball paper nest, I will remove the whole thing. I do not like to use insecticides. Sometimes I will vacuum most of the yellow jackets out and then return again to keep the population down. They will either die from lack of workers or there will be so few that you will not have any more problems with them. By the way, it is illegal to kill a nest of honeybees. The honeybee is having a very difficult time because of disease and mites. They don't need us to contribute to their demise here in Connecticut. If you call me please leave your name, number, a short description of the type of nest it is. If the yellow jacket or hornet nest is up high, please have a ladder ready. Also, please have a source of power for my vacuum. Keep the kids and pets away. And as usual, tell a friend about me. Word of mouth is the best advertisement! Don't get stung! |
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