Different Types of Bees

Honey Bee

These are the bees that people most often associate with “bees.” They are also one of the most beneficial insects on the planet. Their role in pollination is vital to all sorts of fruit and vegetable crops. It is the honey bees’ instrumental and indispensable role in pollination that makes their recent and unexplained disappearance, a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder, such a great concern.

Bees in a hollow tree or beekeeper’s box are all well and good, but when they invade your home it can be quite a different story. Honey bees are capable of producing massive hives containing tens of thousands of workers and weighing hundreds of pounds – doesn’t go well in the living room, does it?

When honey bees nest inside a structure (such as your home) the nest is not at all visible. You’ll see them flying in and out at some small gap, crack, or crevice on the exterior of your house. Note: Please do not seal this entrance hole shut. Read my Common Questions About Bees for more information about this.

Because they are so beneficial to man and the environment, every effort is made to take these bees alive and transport them to a safe, more suitable location. In a situation where this is not possible, the bees will be destroyed and their nest removed. This is probably one of the most involved, tedious, and time-consuming jobs I do. It’s certainly the stickiest!

Bumble Bee

Bumble bees

are seen most often on flowers. They pollinate plants and gather nectar to make honey, but do not make nearly as much honey as honey bees. Bumble bees are not particularly aggressive while buzzing from flower to flower and are much more interested in the next flower than they are in you. However, they are very quick to defend their nest and will not hesitate to sting if they feel their nest is threatened. Those little guys pack a punch too.

Bumble bees tend to build fairly simple and disorganized nests in; dry grass clippings, piles of dried leaves, porch furniture cushions, insulation, or other loose “fluffy” material. I once discovered bumble bees flying through a broken attic window, crossing the attic, and nesting in an old discarded mattress. They may also nest underground or under exterior concrete slabs such as patios or sidewalks.

Carpenter BeesSee those holes in the wood along the eaves? Looks like a carpenter climbed up there and drilled them perfectly round. Actually, the “carpenter” responsible was just over an inch long, weighed only a few grams, and she (yes, they’re mostly females) flew up there and drilled a perfectly round 3/8 inch hole with her mandibles.

They do not eat the wood but rather make tunnels through it in which to lay eggs and raise young. While carpenter bees are strictly considered “wood-destroying” insects, the damage they do is typically limited to surface wood and they are not likely to do any damage to the structural or weight bearing wood of a house.

Carpenter bees are solitary insects, but they will often nest in close proximity to other carpenter bees. Left untreated, they can grow to large numbers and eventually completely destroy the wood in which they are nesting and tunneling. Note: While carpenter bees are strictly considered “wood destroying” insects, they typically will infest only the wood in which you see them nesting. They don’t “get into your house” to destroy studs, rafters, and joists.

Ground BeesGround bees become active in early spring. These bees dig nests in the ground, often in bare patches of the lawn or garden. If you find mounds of soil, similar to anthills but with larger openings, these may be ground bee nests. Watch for bees flying low over the ground and entering their burrows.

Paper Wasp

Habitat, Food Source(s), Damage: Mouthparts are for chewing. Nests are built from wood fiber collected from posts and occasionally from live plant stems, causing some plant damage. This fiber is chewed and formed into a single paper-like comb of hexagonal cells. Nests are oriented downward and are suspended by a single filament. Mature nests contain up to 200 cells. Paper wasps prey on insects such as caterpillars, flies and beetle larvae which they feed to larvae. They actively forage during the day and all colony members rest on the nest at night.

Wasps can be found on flowers, particularly from goldenrod in late fall. Paper wasp nests can be dislodged from eaves using sprays of high pressure water from a good distance, taking precautions not to allow wasps to attack nearby people or pets. Wasps will eventually abandon the nest.

Yellow JacketEastern Yellow Jackets naturally choose meadows or the edges of forests to build their nests, but have increasingly chosen sites near people. People are often stung while trying to remove nests from wall cavities or from sheds, or while running over a nest with a lawnmower.

Yellow Jackets, like most wasps, can sting repeatedly, and will do so when threatened. The females are the only ones with stingers.

An Eastern Yellow Jacket colony can have up to 5,000 members, ruled over by a queen. Female workers will go out looking for food for the larvae (baby yellow jackets). Adult yellow jackets drink nectar from flowers, but the workers will kill other insects to feed to the larvae.

An Africanized bee

The process of an Africanized bee is rare. To africanize a bee is pretty much to mix it with another bee. You take a weaker bee and mix it with a more mean bee so it will have less predators. For example the Africanized honey bee.