Bees, Wasps, and Ants
The ants at your picnic,
the wasp in your backyard, and the bee buzzing on a wildflower are
members of the order Hymenoptera, meaning “membrane wings.” The buzz is
made by four tiny wings flapping furiously. But you won’t hear worker
ants, of course. They don’t have wings.
Bumblebee
© Charles W. Melton
Bees
Bees are the most important pollinators. As they buzz among flowers,
they carry pollen from one plant to another. Bees visit flowers to
gather pollen or nectar, the sweet liquid made by plants. With long
mouthparts, they reach into pockets of nectar tucked within a flower’s
petals.
Wasps
Adult Yellow Jacket wasps drink sweet liquids, such as nectar,
but they feed chewed up insects to larvae. Some wasps paralyze
insects with their stingers, stuff them into the ground, then
lay eggs on the bodies. The larvae that hatch will eat the
disabled insects.
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Paper Wasps
feeding larvae, © Phillip Roullard.
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Wasp
Waists
Bees, wasps, and ants can wiggle their hind ends freely,
thanks to their narrow waists, called pedicels. In some wasps
and ants, the pedicel is very long and thin.
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Mud-dauber Wasp ©
Brian Kenney
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Yellow Jacket © L. West - Photo Researchers, Inc.
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Ouch!
Many wasps, bees, and ants can sting. Millions of years ago,
their stingers were egg-laying tubes. Over time, the tubes
evolved into sharp lances with poison sacs.
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Fire Ant © James H.
Robinson
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Ants
The worker ant scurrying across your floor isn’t a lone
explorer. She reports back to hundreds or thousands of sisters
after she finishes searching for food. Many ants gather
tidbits—dead insects, seeds, and cookie crumbs, for example.
Others hunt insects, collect seeds, or even snip leaves and use
them for growing a crop of fungi to eat.
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