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Wasps, Bees And sawflies
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Bees And Wasps along with ants are part of the Hymenoptera order. I have a separate section on Askbud for Ants and therefore will be talking about Bees, Wasps and Sawflies only on these pages.
Bees belong to the third largest insect order, Hymenoptera, which also includes wasps and Sawflies. Together, these creatures pollinate plants including many crops, turn over the soil more effectively than earthworms, and, in the case of the honey bee, furnish food in the form of honey. Even more importantly, some members of this order prey on other insects, the single most important factor in keeping the Earth's insect population in check.
The bee's eyes, like those of other insects, differ greatly from human eyes. They consist of a pair of compound eyes made up of numerous six-sided facets. They also have three simple eyes. Despite this, their vision is believed to be sharp for a distance of only about 1 m.
Bees, however, are capable of seeing ultraviolet light, which is invisible to humans. The bee is capable of navigating by ultraviolet light, which even penetrates cloud cover. Honey bees also use the sun as a reference point to communicate to other bees the angle of flight to be followed to arrive at
newly discovered nectar bearing flowers.
Bees occur on all continents except Antarctica. They are most frequent in hot, arid habitats. There are about 3500 species of bees in North America
Wasp is a common name applied to most species of hymenoptera insects, except for the bees. Insects known as wasps include the sawflies, the parasitic wasps and the stinging wasps, which are the best known. About 75,000 species of wasps are known, most of them parasitic.
Wasps are characterized by two pairs of membranous wings and an ovipositor that may be modified in various ways.
In some species one sex may be wingless.
In the vegetarian sawflies, the abdomen is broadly attached to the thorax and the ovipositor is rigid, in the higher wasps, the abdomen is flexibly attached to the thorax and the ovipositor is movable. The larvae of parasitic wasps consume the bodies of other insects or, in a few cases, consume plant tissue.
Most stinging wasps are predators or scavengers; their ovipositors may be modified to inject venom used for killing prey or for defense.
Unlike social wasps, sawflies and parasitic wasps do not build nests. After depositing their eggs on a host plant or animal, the
adult wasps fly off in search of food for themselves or more hosts for their larvae. The eggs are left to develop and hatch on their own. However, some stinging wasps live in societies that are more complex than those of social bees.
The stinging wasps rely on a nest from which they conduct many of their activities, especially rearing young. Wasp nests may be as simple as a straight burrow in the ground, like those made by the females of many digger wasps. Some wasp nests, such as those of mud daubers and potter wasps, are above ground, constructed of mud cavities attached to twigs, rocks, or human structures. The simplest mud nests contain only one or a few larval cells and are not used by the adults. Other mud nests contain many cells arranged side by side. Among the most intricate nests are those made of paper fibers collected from dry wood and bark and mixed with the wasps' saliva. The vespoid wasps (yellow jackets, hornets, and paper wasps) build nests of this type. In each paper-fiber nest there are one or more combs, or densely packed arrays of larval cells. The adults may congregate on the combs, and some nests have an outer cover, forming a protective refuge for the whole colony. This is the familiar "hornet's nest" that may house hundreds or thousands of individuals
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