Now that spring is here, we are seeing those little black and yellow bees that have come to visit our gardens and invade our picnics. While the Honey Bee is passive and willing to work around us, the Yellow Jacket is aggressive and can be extremely dangerous. Here are some facts about these two bees that you might find useful.

Their Appearance

There are many similarities between Honey Bees and Yellow Jackets that can be easily confused.

They look alike with the yellow and black stripe bands on their abdomens. However, Yellow jackets are slightly smaller at about ½ inch long, and they don’t have pollen baskets on their rear legs like the Honey Bees do. The Yellow Jacket’s stinger is smooth and can be used repeatedly to sting, but the Honeybees have a barbed stinger that can only be used once.

Their Mission

Both bees come to your garden in the spring and are beneficial to your plants.

The Honey Bee spends the entire season pollinating your plants and returning to its hive to make honey. They are innocent and focussed on their duties and will only sting if they are under severe attack.

The Yellow Jacket comes in the early spring, and although it has nothing to do with pollinating, it is beneficial to your garden because it eats the insects such as caterpillars and harmful flies that attack the plants.

The Danger

The common fear that we share for all bees is getting stung by them.

The Honey Bee will only sting to defend itself, and is only able to sting once since it’s barbed stinger remains in the victim, leaving the bee defenceless after that. It is not aggressive and does not attack or defend without reason. You will only see this bee at work pollinating or commuting back and forth to its hive.

However, Yellow Jackets are extremely aggressive and are known as being “attack bees” because they attack you in hoards if they sense you are getting in their way. They are able to sting repeatedly even during a single attack with a venom that is poisonous and even fatal to someone who is allergic to it.

Yellow Jackets change their eating habits part way through the summer from bugs and insects to human food. Their regime is divided into sections where one group will hunt out the food to bring back to the hive – human food from hamburgers to salads to desserts; a second group will hover in the distance hidden away behind bushes prepared to attack if the bees getting food are pushed away; and a third group remains inside the nest with the queen bee.

The Hive

Both bees live in hives filled with honey and are run by a queen bee.

Honey Bees build a hive of honey usually in high places situated in sunny areas.

Yellow jackets build their hives or nests in hidden, shaded areas such as wholes or pockets that have been deserted like tree trunks, piles of wood, scrapped cars or animal burrows.

Conclusion

If you have bees hovering over your picnic and landing on your bread rolls, they are not Honey Bees, they are Yellow Jackets. You need to get away from them because you’re not going to shoo them away from you. They will attack if you stay there.

You will want to destroy their nest as soon as possible because as the summer progresses, they become more aggressive and will sting randomly to get you away from the food.

If you have suspicions of where their nest might be, hang some fish or meat on a string and wait for them to come. Watch from a distance and you’ll see where their nest is when they return to it.

If you attempt to destroy the nest during the day, you’ll be aggressively attacked because there are guard bees hovering a short distance away, watching and waiting for you. Go at night when the entire nest of bees is inside and asleep, and you can actually spray the nest without having any of them come at you.