[INTRO]
It's summer! And there you are, exploring the great outdoors and suddenly you hear
a buzz, see a flash of yellow and black and--yeah!
You've been stung!
Was it a bee or wasp or a yellow jacket or hornet?
If you didn't get a good look at the tiny attacker, you could always try following a home,
You know, carefully.
Because you can learn a lot about certain kinds of stinging insects by looking at their nests.
First up you should know that all wasps and bees belong to the Hymenoptera Order of insects.
And bees actually evolved from wasps sometime around a hundred and thirty million years ago.
This probably happened when a solitary female wasp somehow, maybe even
accidentally, introduced pollen to her personal nest while, bringing insect prey
back for her larva.
Pollen, is full of protein and could have been a nutritious food source especially
when prey insects were scarce. So, scientists think that some wasps might
have started actively collecting pollen and eventually gave up hunting entirely.
Trading their smooth, elongated bodies with big mandibles, for bodies that were
adapted to collect pollen and mouth parts to slurp up nectar. In other words,
they evolved into the first solitary bees. Lots of differences we see between
wasps and bees today reflect these food choices. Whether they nest alone or are
social types that live in colonies. Some solitary female wasps just lay eggs in
paralyzed pray, but others create a small nest to store the bodies by reusing
holes and wood made by other insects, building it out of mud or digging it
into the ground. Solitary bees bring back pollen and nectar to a wood or dirt
chamber.
Sometimes lining their nests with different materials depending on the
species. For example, Mason Bees use mud, Carpenter Bees use saw dust and Leaf-
Cutter Bees, well, you get the picture.
They use tiny leaf pieces. But what about the colonies? Those big old nests you see in
trees or on the corner your garage? Most social wasps, which include Yellow
Jackets and Hornets, are in the family Vespidae, and make their nests out of
paper. They come in different shapes and sizes depending on what kind of wasp is building.
If you're looking at a big umbrella shaped nest, tucked under the eaves of
your house and you can see hexagonal cells then, probably that's a home to some
Paper Wasps. If it's a football-shaped nest with
smooth walls hanging from say, a tree branch, you're probably standing next to
a colony of Hornets. If you see a stream of wasps zipping into a hole in the
ground or the walls of a building,
you're probably watching Yellow Jackets duck into their hidden home.
Each spring, a Queen wasp starts constructing her new colony in her
preferred location by gathering wood pulp. Scraping her mandibles against
things like tree branches, fence posts, and even cardboard boxes. She mixes this
pulp with saliva to make a fibery-goo that dries into a solid, paper structure.
She'll then lay some eggs that will grow into female workers, who will help expand
and defend the nest. Most wasp colonies tend to be pretty small. Some
Paper Wasp nests have fewer than a hundred individuals while, some Yellow
Jacket nests hold up to a couple thousand. And aside from the Queen these wasps
may only live for a few weeks. So especially in temperate areas their
nests really only need to provide shelter for a season's worth of
offspring before their abandoned and left to degrade. Everyone dies, besides
any fertilized Queens, and even they abandon ship to find a safe place to
hibernate for the cold winter before starting the whole cycle over again. But
social bees in the family Apidae, like Bumble Bees and Honey Bees, they do
things kind of different.
Bumble Bees still have pretty small nests holding up to a few hundred bees and
they build them in all kinds of protected places: abandoned rodent dens
thick grass, sheds or in trees. Their Queens operate on yearly cycles as well.
Hibernating over the winter then emerging in the spring to gather food.
But bees lack the proper mouth parts to make their hives out of paper so, instead
they secrete a durable, waxy substance from their abdomens to construct nectar
pots and start a small colony. Honey Bees on the other hand, carefully select the
perfect hive location as a group. Favoring protected areas like, inside the
hollow of tree cavities, within walls or in artificial beekeeper boxes.
Honey Bee hives are sturdy. Constructed out of organized hexagonal honeycomb
cells that they used to store honey,
pollen and raise larvae. Their colonies are huge, supporting tens of thousands of
members, who live up to a couple months. And these hives are built to last
through the winter since, these bees store around 60 pounds of honey for food
and huddle together for warmth. So we all know bees are essential for their role
in pollination and you might hate social wasps for setting up
camp in your garage but, they do help to keep pests insect populations down and
their homes are perfectly suited for their lifestyles. Thanks for watching
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The science of how and why this happened isn't entirely settled but, one thing is
certain, royal jelly plays a large role.
Worker Bees produce royal jelly from ...