Nature on our doorsteps: Honey bees and wasps
By Rosaleen Dwyer
Rosaleen Dwyer is the County Heritage Officer at South Dublin County Council – every week she gives us an insight into the natural heritage around us and the beautiful biodiversity of the plants and creatures.
The wasp and the honey bee are sometimes misidentified by us, usually because we are too busy shooing them away!
Wasps have black and yellow stripes while honey bees are brown with lighter coloured bands.
While both insects sting, a honey bee only does so when threatened.
Her sting is barbed so when she stings, she cannot pull it back out of our skin again.
As she pulls away, the tip of her body is left behind and she dies soon afterwards.
Wasps, however, have needle-like stings so can sting again and again.
Honey bees make honey using nectar and pollen so that they can hive over winter.
Wasps do not make honey.
They will eat pollen and nectar but also hunt insects and spiders, carrying them back to their nests where they chew them up and feed them to their larvae.
In return, the larva rewards the wasp with a sugary drop of liquid.
In autumn, new queen wasps emerge and leave the nest.
The old queen dies, leaving the workers without a purpose.
With no new grubs to feed and no sugary rewards, the workers aggressively seek out other sources of sugar.
It is at this point, as they come into closer contact with us, that we find them most troublesome.
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