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Bees, wasps, and hornets may look alike and belong to the same order of insects, Hymenoptera, but they are different insects.
How can you distinguish between a hornet vs wasp and a bee?
The words hornet and wasp are all too often used interchangeably, but there will be no need to do that after you’ve learnt all about their key differences in this article.
The biggest and most key fact to know is that all hornets are wasps, but not all wasps are hornets.
Bees and wasps took separate evolutionary paths over 100 million years ago.
Bees are vegetarians, collecting pollen to feed their young, while wasps and hornets are carnivores, feeding on other insects. The main thing they have in common is that only females can sting.
If you’re looking for ways to repel wasps and hornets, you can jump straight to the end of this article where we’ll share some natural ways to discourage them.
What’s the Difference Between A Hornet vs Wasp and a Bee?
Let’s take a look at some of the overall differences, and then we’ll take a deeper dive into each different insect.
Identification
Bee: Typically fluffier and hairier than wasps. The hair allows them to collect pollen. Their bodies are wider than wasps, and their legs are stout.
Wasp: Narrow waists with bright black and yellow bands on their bodies. Smoother and less hairy than bees, and their legs cannot be seen which they’re flying.
Hornet: Also has a smooth and hairless body. Twice the size of a wasp, a larger vertex (the head part behind their eyes) than wasps. Markings can vary dependent on the species. See some of the common species below.
Behavior
Bee: Not aggressive.
Wasp: More aggressive than bees, but not as aggressive as hornets.
Hornet: Very aggressive.
Nest Differences
Bee: Nests vary depending on the species. Some are made from wax that they secrete, others nest underground. You can’t really mistake their nests, they look significantly different.
Wasp: Make their nests from chewed wood fibers and salvia to construct ‘paper nests’. They are sphere shape, and start off small, growing to a football size. Solitary wasps don’t typically nest.
Hornet: Also make paper nests, but teardrop shaped and about the size of a basketball. It has hexagonal combs and one entrance.
Both hornets and wasps build their grey colored nests off any horizontal surface including ceilings and eaves. Hornets prefer to build their nests in shrubs and tree branches.
Feeding Habits
Bee: Pollen and nectar are the main sources of food for bees. Pollen is the fine powdery stuff found in the heads of flowers and nectar is produced by plants.
Wasp: Both wasps and hornets are predators. Adults consume a liquid diet and are attracted to sugary substances (which is why they always appear at your picnics!) They feed on nectar, fruit juices and nutritional liquid produced by their young. Adults collect insects and other small invertebrate prey to feed their young. Food is typically chewing into small pieces.
Hornet: These predators are more likely to feed on insects than they are your sugary food, but if they do get particularly hungry, the will make a bee-line for your sugary snacks.
Stings
Bee: Bees don’t want to use their stingers and the lose them and die when they do. They’ll only sting as a last resort if they or the nest is in immediate danger. Bees use their sting for protection where as wasps don’t.
Wasp: Social wasps don’t seek people out to sting them, but they will sting a lot more readily than bees. They can sting multiples times because unlike bees, their stingers are not barbed.
Hornet: Like wasps, hornets can sting over and over, too, and their stings are the most painful of all three insects. They are more territorial that other wasps, especially if their nest is under threat.
Hornets
Let’s repeat it again - all hornets are wasps, but not all wasps are hornets.
In the U.S., we have no native hornets. Our main hornet is the European hornet, which was introduced to New York in 1840. It looks like a large yellowjacket—about ¾ to 1½ inches long—and nests in the ground or in hollow trees.
Another “hornet” we commonly encounter is the bald-faced hornet, a type of paper wasp closely related to the yellowjacket. They are black with white markings on their face and abdomen. You have probably seen their huge, gray, basketball-sized nests swinging high in a tree.
A new hornet that was recently introduced to the West Coast got a lot of press a few years ago. The Asian giant hornet is also called the “murder hornet” for the way they attack honey bee colonies, killing the bees by ripping off their heads, eating the honey, and stealing the larvae to feed to their own young.
They are the giants of the wasp world, measuring 2 inches long. In Japan, they are called sparrow wasps since they resemble small birds in flight. Their sting is very painful to humans, and about 50 unlucky people a year are killed by the deadly neurotoxin contained in their venom.
Wasps
There are roughly 103,000 different species of wasps. Only around 1000 of these species are considered social, meaning that they live in colonies with a queen, female worker bees, and drones—like honeybees. The rest are solitary wasps, such as digger wasps and mud daubers.
Solitary wasps nest in the ground or in natural cavities, while social wasps attach papery nests made from chewed fibers to tree limbs or the eaves of your house.
The yellowjacket is a social wasp that will nest aboveground or belowground. In the fall, all the social wasps die off—except for the fertilized queens. They overwinter in protected spots such as hollow logs, under loose tree bark, or in a soil cavity and emerge in the spring to start a new colony. Solitary wasps depend on their larvae to mature in spring and start a new generation.
Bees
Bees eat pollen and nectar, feeding it to their young. This makes them important pollinators. Bees look furry because they are covered with branched, feather-like hairs that pollen clings onto. Bees are not aggressive and only sting in self-defense. In fact, the male bees have no stinger. With the exception of honey bees and bumblebees, most bees are solitary and live in underground nests. Each female takes care of her eggs and gathers pollen to feed the larvae when they hatch. There are about 4,000 species of bees native to the United States and Canada. (For more about them, see our Native Bees article)
Bees have a wide, hairy body and stout legs and lose their stinger when they sting.
Wasps and hornets have skinny bodies with narrow waists. They can sting multiple times and their bodies are mostly hairless .
Of course, there are many kinds of bees. Most of us grew up learning about the sophisticated social structures of honey bees and bumblebees, and we’ve come to think that their lifestyle represents all bee behavior. The truth is that the world is home to more than 20,000 species of bees, and a whopping 90% of them do not live together in hives.
Whether bee, wasp, or hornet, the basic life cycle is the same—egg, larva, pre-pupa, pupa, adult. Fertilized eggs produce female bees, while unfertilized ones produce males. Eggs are placed in individual nest cells and provisioned with a food source for the newly hatched larvae to eat—a loaf made of pollen and nectar for bees or a paralyzed insect for wasps.
Some eggs hatch in a few days, while others wait until the next season to emerge. The larvae eat, grow, and molt their skin up to five times. The pre-pupal stage can last a long time. An egg laid in the spring can take all summer to reach the pre-pupal stage, and then it can stay that way all fall and winter. Some bees remain pre-pupal for several years! The pupa looks like an adult but is pale in color and has no wings or hair. In a short time, the pupa chews its way out of the nest as an adult.
Are Hornets and Wasps “Bad Bugs”?
No! Wasps are very important, playing a vital ecological role in controlling pests. Social wasps are predators, collecting insects such as caterpillars, grubs, grasshoppers, aphids, and flies, which are stung, paralyzed, and put into the egg chambers for newly hatched larvae to eat. Wasps also prey upon spiders; the blue mud dauber’s preferred meal is the black widow!
Since wasps prey on some bad bugs, they should be considered beneficial to gardeners. Adults feed on nectar, doing some accidental pollinating simultaneously, so they are minor pollinators.
On the other hand, they are drawn to meat and sweets and scavenge whatever they find, so they can be a nuisance for outdoor dining and will congregate around trash cans. If you encounter them, don’t swat at them or act aggressively, or you risk being stung. They will also sting to protect their hive. If you should accidentally mow over a ground nest—run! Unlike honey bees, who can only sting once, wasps are capable of stinging multiple times.
Wasps, Bees, and Hornets are Beneficial
Most bees, wasps, and hornets are beneficial. Both wasps and hornets are real workhorses for pest management in the garden and farm, feeding on the “bad” insects that destroy crops. In fact, if you were able to see many of their nests, they’re stocked with paralyzed adult grasshoppers, crickets, caterpillars, and sawflies. Learn 10 Ways to Help Pollinators
Also, if you look carefully at the garden, wasps are very helpful pollinators! They are usually solitary and non-aggressive, busily hovering and moving from flower to flower. There are so many Beneficial Insects in the Garden!
None of these beneficial insects should be killed unless their nest is close to humans and is creating a hazard. For example, we had bald-faced hornets make a nest next to our front door, and every time the door opened or closed, they were ready to fight! Needless to say, that nest had to go. We waited until after dark when the hornets had all returned to the nest and sprayed an aerosol wasp killer into the entrance hole. After a few days of seeing no activity, we were able to remove the nest.
For ground-nesting wasps and hornets, locate the entrance hole, spray into the opening, and plug the hole with a large rock. Don’t try to burn or drown a nest with water. That just makes them mad! When attempting any eradication of nests, be sure to dress appropriately, covering your eyes and all bare skin (just in case). Also, be sure to have an escape route planned!
Otherwise, pause before you kill these insects; remember that they are a beneficial part of our ecosystem and especially critical for pest control in our gardens, public lands, and croplands.
Repeling Hornets and Wasps
If you absolutely must repel hornets and wasps from your garden, here are some natural ways you can do that.
Plants: use plants that wasps and hornets don’t like, such as basil, marigold, citronella and mint. Any strong smelling plants seem to repel these insects.
Essential oils: Similarly to strong smelling plants, essential oils do the job and this is normally much quick than waiting for new plants to grow! Leave a cottonwool ball soaked in peppermint or citronella close to the area you want to remove them from.
Remove food sources: this is a simple one - these insects are attracted to any fizzy drinks or sweet stuff, so always remove it as soon as you’ve finished.
Do you see wasps, hornets, and bees in your garden?
Every year wasps build nests in my chicken coop, so I have to navigate by them to collect the eggs. What I've found is they'll dive bomb me the first couple of times I go by then they leave me alone. I usually get a couple of sting before they realize I'm just a giant nobody who likes to have them around. I consider the sting a kiss, and just blow it off.
Bees aren’t vegetarian. They’re omnivores. Their meat is microbes. Scientists spent 4 years proving that microbes are an essential part of a bees diet, and did an experiment where they took 84 male bee larvae and separated them into groups of 7. They sterilized half of the pollen and fed different mixes of sterilized and unsterilized pollen to the groups. As the percentage of sterilized pollen increased so did the larvae’s likelihood of dying. The larvae also weighed less and took longer to grow. Thus proving that microbes are an important source of nutrients for the bees.
We have a lot of flowers and flowering trees and shrubs, so we have lots of bees. They absolutely love the lavender. My grandsons know that they're friendly and beneficial, and are not afraid of them. In fact, on Easter, someone put a couple of Easter eggs in the lavender bushes, and one of my grandsons reached in through the buzzing bees to get them.
What are the big black bees? I had one buzzing around me while I was harvesting seeds. It's large and fuzzy, like a bumblebee, but all black.
You can remove a small bee or wasps' nest safely without killing the bees or wasps. Unelss you feel totally confident do not attempt this procedure. Cover yourself head to foot wearing long sleeve shirt and long trousers or jeans and boots. For added protection cover yourself with loose fine meshed netting and wear a wide brim hat and thick leather gloves to protect your face, ears, neck and hands. Use tape around your wrist to stop them flying in through your arm holes. Wait until dusk when they are at their most docile. You can pick up the nest from its attached point or take the whole branch with a pair of long nose pliers, you can capture the nest inside a plastic bag or large jar to remove and transport the nest to a new location. Just leave the nest in a tree or bush and slowly walk away. The bees or wasps will find their own way to reattaching the nest. Hornets are more aggressive than bees or wasps so without a proper beekeepers outfit it is unwise to try to move a hornet's nest. Otherwise just kill the nest by spraying it with WD40 and remove it when they have died.
Several years there was a Bald Faced Hornet grey paper "death star" nest each year in the Magnolia at the back of my garden. I was never stung, however I was given a warning shot twice, probably by a rookie (hit on the head by the insect itself, which warns and "marks" you so the others know who to attack if necessary) They are not aggressive (if you don't bother them) and are ferocious efficient predators. One year the nest was only 8 ft up, 10 ft back from the garden. They patrol & monitor your activity (even remind me of cops-their eyes look like aviator shades!) seemed to recognize me after a while. I just moved slow, close to the ground and quietly said "Long live the queen" when I saw them. As long as their queen wasn't threatened, they let me work. I read if they are attacked the entire regiment will give chase up to 1/4 mile.
We have red paper wasps that have made our porch their home and they are super chill. We've never had a problem with them, I think the only time that came close was when a couple were flying around me a lot ( normally they don't even acknowledge our presence) then we realized they had made a nest on the back of the chair I was in and I was LITERALLY TOUCHING IT!!! I have a garden that ranges from potted items on the porch to a couple herb gardens, a berry patch and a little wildflower garden so I really appreciate what they do for the garden and I like to think they appreciate me too ☺️
Bees (and wasps and hornets, of course) are beneficial but their population has been drastically decreasing these years due to urbanization. This is harmful for the global crop production too as honeybees are responsible for almost one third of the world's food production. If applicable, I would suggest you to contact the bee savers or related organizations near by that help to relocate the bees, rather than kill them yourself (it is safer, too)
Bee's stings are an "acid" but, conversely, Wasps' stings are a "base" so,(aside from someone who gets stung AND has a known sever reaction to stings, in which case they require immediate expert medical care) treatment differs in that you must neutralize the respective sting. Bees' stings, being an acid composition, requires the addition of a "base" to neutralize the pain (ie. baking soda mixed with a tad of water to make a paste); conversely, Wasps' stings are a "base" thus it requires the addition of an "acid" (ie.vinegar, lemon juice, pickles) to neutralize the pain the recipient of the sting will be experiencing. ....excerpt from a basic first aid manual.