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BUMBLE BEE
Bumblebees are considered to be beneficial insects because they pollinate crops and plants. They are very social bees and live in large "families".
Unlike honeybees, bumblebees can sting more than once because their stingers are smooth and do not get caught in the skin when they fly away.
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Size: 1"
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Shape: Oval, bee shaped
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Color: Black with yellow stripes
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Legs: 6
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Wings: Yes
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Antenna: Yes
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Common Name: Bumble bee
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Kingdom: Animalia
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Phylum: Arthropoda
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Class: Insecta
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Order: Hymenoptera
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Family: Apidae
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Species: Bombus
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Diet:
Worker bees gather both pollen and nectar from flowers to feed to the larvae and other members of the colony.
Habitat:
Bumblebees often nest in the ground, but can be found above ground around patio areas or decks. They will sometimes build their nests in attics or under roof beams. If disturbed, bumblebees will buzz in a loud volume, and they will aggressively defend their nests.
Impact:
As part of the aggressive defense of their nests, bumblebees will chase nest invaders for long distances. The bumblebee sting is one of the most painful stings. Swelling and irritation can last for days after you are actually stung.
Prevention:
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Bumblebees can be prevented through inspection of potential nesting areas and removal of potential nesting materials.
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Because bumblebees will sting when threatened, homeowners are advised not to address the infestation themselves. A pest management professional or beekeeper should be called in to help.
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CARPENTER BEE
Carpenter bees are solitary bees. They build nests just for themselves and only feed their own young. They get their name from their ability to drill through wood. Carpenter bee stingers are not barbed, so they are able to sting over and over again.
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Size: 1"
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Shape: Oval, bee shaped
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Color: Blue-black
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Legs: 6
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Wings: Yes
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Antenna: Yes
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Common Name: Carpenter bee
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Kingdom: Animalia
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Phylum: Arthropoda
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Class: Insecta
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Order: Hymenoptera
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Family: Apidae
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Species: Xylocopa
Diet:
Worker bees gather both pollen and nectar from flowers to feed to the larvae and other members of the colony.
Habitat:
Carpenter bees bore through soft woods to lay eggs and protect their larvae as they develop. Female carpenter bees will chew a tunnel into a piece of wood to build a nest gallery. The bits of wood she chews and deposits outside the nest are called "frass". The tunnel openings usually look about one or two inches deep, but they can be up to 10 feet long! These tunnels usually have several rooms where the bees hold their eggs and food.
Impact:
Carpenter bees do not pose a public health threat, but they can do cosmetic damage to the wood where they build their nests. Carpenter bees are beneficial because they pollinate plants that are ignored by Honeybees.
Prevention:
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Carpenter bees can drill into almost any wood, but prefer bare wood, so painting and staining wood can sometimes deter them.
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However, they will sometimes attack stained or painted wood, and their nests can be hard to reach, so a pest management professional or beekeeper should be called in to help.
HONEY BEE
Honeybees live in large "families" and are found all over the world. The honeybee is the only social insect whose colony can survive many years. That is because they huddle together and eat honey to keep themselves alive during the winter months.
Honeybees pollinate more than 100 crops in the U.S.
Their wings flap 11,000 times per minute, which is why it sounds like they are "buzzing". Honeybees can only sting once, because their stingers are barbed and tear off when they try to get away.
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Size: 1/2"
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Shape: Oval, bee shaped
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Color: Golden yellow with brown bands
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Legs: 6
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Wings: Yes
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Antenna: Yes
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Common Name: Honeybee
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Kingdom: Animalia
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Phylum: Arthropoda
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Class: Insecta
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Order: Hymenoptera
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Family: Apidae
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Species: Apis
Diet:
Honeybees produce honey from pollen and nectar of the plants they pollinate. They store the honey in honeycombs in their nests, which they use to feed their young in colder months.
Habitat:
Honeybee nests vary in size. They typically build their nests in tree crevices, but will occasionally build nests in attics or chimneys.
Impact:
Honeybees do sting, but they only sting once. The sting can be extremely painful if the stinger is not immediately removed from the skin. Persons allergic to insect stings will have a more severe reaction.
Prevention:
Because honeybee colonies can be extremely large and removal can be very messy, only a pest management professional or experienced beekeeper can safely remove a honeybee nest.
BALD FACED HORNET
Bald-faced hornets get their name from the large white patches on their faces. They can be found across the United States. Its main predators are bears and raccoons.
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Size: 3/4"
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Shape: Wasp
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Color: Black and white
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Legs: 6
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Wings: Yes
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Antenna: Yes
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Common Name: Bald-faced hornet
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Kingdom: Animalia
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Phylum: Arthropoda
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Class: Insecta
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Order: Hymenoptera
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Family: Vespidae
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Species: Dolichovespula maculata
Diet:
Bald-faced hornets eat nectar and fruit juices.
Habitat:
Bald-faced hornets house their colonies inside large nests that they build hanging from trees, bushes, vegetation and occasionally from buildings. A single mated queen starts a new nest each spring by laying eggs inside a small nest made from paper strips and loose bark. The workers then gradually expand the size of the nest until it is larger than a basketball by the end of the summer. The queen lives deep in the nest, so she is always protected.
Impact:
Bald-faced hornets are aggressive and will attack anyone or anything that invades their space. They have smooth stingers, so they can sting over and over again. Their stings also carry venom that makes the stings hurt, itch or swell for about 24 hours. Humans are at the same risk of allergic reactions from a bald-faced hornet sting as with other hornet stings.
Prevention:
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Do not leave sweet drinks or meats out in the open.
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Call Pest Assassins Exterminating if you find hornets around your house.
EUROPEAN HORNET
European hornets are much larger than other wasps. Unlike most other stinging insects, European hornets will fly at night.
Queens are the only females to reproduce. Most other hornets are female workers who build the hive, gather food, feed the young, and protect the colony. There are few males (also called drones) in the hive. Since their job is to mate with the queen, males typically die soon after mating.
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Size: 1 1/2"
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Shape: Wasp
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Color: Black with yellow markings
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Legs: 6
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Wings: Yes
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Antenna: Yes
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Common Name: European hornet
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Kingdom: Animalia
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Phylum: Arthropoda
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Class: Insecta
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Order: Hymenoptera
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Family: Vespidae
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Species: Vespa crabro
Diet:
Their diet consists mainly of large insects such grasshoppers, flies, bees, and yellow jackets. They also eat tree sap, fruit and honeydew. And, unlike other species of hornet, the European hornet will hunt in groups.
Habitat:
Nests are typically built in hollow trees, but they are often found in barns, sheds, attics, and hollow areas of house walls. Unlike its cousins the yellow jacket and the bald-faced hornets, European hornets rarely build nests that are free hanging or in unprotected areas, such as tree limbs. They use decaying wood fiber to build a shell around their nest as protection. As winter approaches, the worker bees die off and the Queen will leave the existing nest and find an empty log or other sheltered spot to spend the winter.
Impact:
European hornets can do a great deal of damage to trees and shrubs, because they strip the bark to get to the sap. They also use the bark fiber to build their nests. They have smooth stingers, so they can sting over and over again. Their stings also carry venom that makes the stings hurt, itch or swell for about 24 hours. A European hornet sting has the same risk of allergic reactions from as with other wasp stings.
Prevention:
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Do not leave sweet drinks or meats out in the open.
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Call Pest Assassins Exterminating if you find hornets around your house.
YELLOW JACKET
Yellow jackets are social insects that live in nests or colonies with up to 4,000 workers. These flying insects typically have a yellow and black head/face and patterned abdomen. Many say that the pattern resembles stripes.
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Size: 3/8" to 5/8
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Shape: Wasp
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Color: Black with yellow stripes
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Legs: 6
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Wings: Yes
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Antenna: Yes
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Common Name: Yellow jacket
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Kingdom: Animalia
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Phylum: Arthropoda
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Class: Insecta
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Order: Hymenoptera
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Family: Vespidae
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Species: Vespula vulgaris
Diet:
Yellow jackets eat spiders and insects. They will also feed on human food, especially meats and sweets. Unlike bees, wasps do not make honey or store food.
Habitat:
Yellow jackets like to be where humans live. They usually build their nests underground, around garbage and in cool, dark spaces. They also build nests in trees, shrubs and in holes in walls. Most yellow jacket colonies only remain active for one year. Then the queen flies off to start a new colony. The remaining bees die in the fall and the nest is abandoned. Look for yellow jacket nests during the day, because you can see them flying in and out, but destroy nests at night, when they are dormant and all there.
Impact:
Wasps help farmers by eating pests that can destroy crops. They are dangerous because they can sting multiple times, injecting venom into the host. For most people a yellow jacket sting just causes a welt and temporary pain, but their sting can cause allergic reactions to people sensitive to this venom.
Prevention:
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Do not leave sweet drinks or meats out in the open.
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Call a Pest Assassins Exterminating if you find yellow jackets around your house.
DIGGER BEE
Digger Bee, common name for a group of robust, fast-flying, ground-nesting bees with velvety fur. These bees live throughout the world. There are several thousand species, more than 900 of which occur in the United States and Canada. Digger bees visit a wide variety of flowers and are important in pollination. They are also called longhorned bees due to the exceptionally long antennae of the males.
Digger bees range from the size of a honey bee to as large as a bumble bee. These bees mostly nest in the ground and line their brood cells (compartments for offspring) with a waxlike secretion. In some species, the females construct a characteristic turret, a chimneylike extension of the nest entrance. Other digger bees nest in wood and some are parasites of other bees. Parasitic digger bees do not construct nests.
Digger bees display very interesting nesting and foraging behavior. Many species nest in dense aggregations, and swarms of males cruise around the nesting sites searching for emerging females. In one species, the males can detect the females in the ground before they emerge.
These males dig a hole into the ground where the female will emerge and then await her arrival. Other males attempt to take over and fights ensue. The largest bee usually wins.
A species of digger bee called the southeastern blueberry bee specializes on blueberry plants in its pollen-collecting. It is more efficient at pollinating these plants than honey bees or bumble bees. Another species, the pallid bee, puts on spectacular displays of mating behavior in the spring around nests in desert washes in Arizona. The Pacific sand dune bee is a digger bee that nests in coastal sand dunes in California, Oregon, and Washington. The females dig nests 0.9 m (3 ft) deep in compacted dune sand.
Scientific classification: The digger bees comprise the subfamily Anthophorinae, family Anthophoridae, order Hymenoptera. The southeastern blueberry bee is Habropoda laboriosa, the Pacific sand dune bee is Habropoda miserabilis, and the pallid bee is Centris pallida.
PAPER WASP
These insects are called paper wasps due to the construction of their nests. Paper wasp nests are made from plant material combined with saliva and appear to be made from paper. Their nests include numerous compartments within which wasps lay their eggs and rear their young. The nests typically do not have an outer shell with the cells of the nest visible. In fact, it somewhat resembles an umbrella and is the reason they may be called umbrella wasps. These nests are frequently found in sheltered areas, such as door frames, window sill and the eaves of houses.
Paper wasps feed on nectar and pollen, although they also hunt for insects such as caterpillars with which to nourish their colonies’ larvae. As larvae develop into adults, they assist in expanding the nest and nurturing future generations.
Paper wasps are considered beneficial because they assist in pollination by feeding on nectar, and they control pest insect populations by feeding them to their larvae. However, despite their ecological benefits, paper wasp nests should not be permitted to develop in or near the home. Stings from paper wasps are extremely painful and may produce serious reactions to people who are allergic to the venom.
Removing a paper wasp nest may be dangerous. It is advised that a pest control professional be contacted to assist in treatment of paper wasp infestations.
CICADA KILLER WASP
Cicada Killer Wasps (Sphecius Speciosus) are ‘Solitary Wasps’.
Cicada killers wasps are large (one and a half inch or longer) wasps with dark brown bodies and black abdomens with yellow markings. Cicada killer wasps are usually found in the Rocky Mountains of the US. Cicada killer wasps are ground nesters which prefer sandy or other well-drained soils where the queens dig tunnel-like chambers.
The adults are active in the summer, usually around mid-July. They are frequently seen flying about in the nesting areas.
CICADA KILLER WASP LIFECYCLE
The adult wasps feed on flower nectar however, the larva and immature wasps feed on other Cicadas.
The queens search for Cicadas to provision their nests (hence the name).
Each chamber in the nest (often as many as 16) is supplied with a paralyzed Cicada wasp and a wasp egg. When the larvae hatches it feeds on the Cicada wasp. Later the larvae pupates and the wasp hibernates in the nest as an immature adult.
CICADA KILLER WASP AND HUMANS
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Female Cicada killer wasps are not aggressive and rarely sting unless handled roughly, disturbed, or caught in clothing, etc. Males aggressively defend their perching areas on nesting sites against rival males but they have no sting. Although they appear to attack anything which moves near their territories, male cicada killers are actually investigating anything which might be a female cicada killer ready to mate.
Such close inspection appears to many people to be an attack, but the wasps rarely sting, bite, or even land on people. If handled roughly females will sting, males will jab with a sharp spine on the tip of their abdomen, and both sexes are well equipped to bite with their large jaws, however they are non-aggressive towards humans and fly away when swatted at, instead of attacking.
Cicada killer wasps exert a natural control on cicada populations and therefore directly benefit the deciduous trees on which cicadas feed.
MUD DAUBER WASP
Scientific Name
Family Sphecidae & Crabronidae
Appearance
Mud dauber is a common name for wasps that make their brood nests with mud. There are many species of wasps referred to as mud daubers; some other common names are dirt daubers, organ-pipe wasps, mud wasps and potter wasps. Although their appearance varies greatly, mud daubers generally are from ½ to 1 inch long. Mud daubers are colored either completely black or blue metallic. Some species have yellow or greenish markings on the body. The body shape is typically “thread-waisted” with some mud daubers possessing an extremely long and thin, stretched out looking body segment located between the thorax and abdomen.
Behavior, Diet & Habits
Mud dauber wasps undergo complete metamorphosis, meaning they have four stages during their life cycle – egg, larvae (grub/worm-like), pupae (cocoon) and adult. Mud daubers are solitary insects even though in some suitable habitats more than one mud nest will be found. The shape of mud nests helps identify different groups of mud daubers. One nest shape appears as a group of cells that are cylinder-shaped and covered over with mud so it appears to be a smooth mud nest about 2 inches wide and about 4 inches long. Another, the organ pipe group, constructs a nest that looks like a series of tubes resembling the pipes on a pipe organ. Still another mud nest is constructed by the potter wasp that makes a nest resembling a small, clay pot. While most mud daubers make new nests for each generation, a few species will reuse old mud nests constructed by other mud daubers.
Mud daubers complete one or two generations per year, depending on the species. In the spring, the overwintering pupae (cocoon) develop into adults. The new adult females begin building a new nest and after completing the mud nest, begin to capture insects or spiders that are placed into each mud nest cell. Eggs are deposited on the prey within each cell, and the cell sealed with mud. The larvae that hatch from the eggs feed on the prey left by the adult wasp, and then change into the pupal stage (cocoon) that overwinters. Prey are stung and paralyzed, not killed, before being placed in the mud cell. This is crucial since dead prey would decompose and aren’t suitable nourishment for required larval development. The following spring, the pupae become adults, thus beginning the next generation of mud daubers. Adults feed on plant nectar, honeydew and the body fluids of the spiders and insects they capture. At least two species of mud daubers are especially important since they are reported to seek out and capture black widow spiders.
More Information
Mud daubers are actually very beneficial since they help reduce the numbers of some pest insects and spiders. Also, they are not likely to sting. However, it is never smart to approach their nests without exercising caution. If mud daubers become a nuisance and insecticide products are the answer, be sure to contact your pest management professional for their recommendations and assistance. If safety is not an issue, remove old, inactive nests. Since some species will reuse old nests, spiders or insect prey carcasses can become a food source for beetles that may contaminate fabrics or food. Scraping off the nest or using a strong stream of water from a garden hose works. In addition, anything done to seal harborage sites such as cracks and holes in buildings is helpful to reduce the prey population.