There are countless species of insects wandering in this world. Insects are both helpful and harmful for human beings. Also, these insects can be vegan and non-vegetarian.
Wasps and bees are two types of insects, and one of them (bees) feeds on flowers. Wasps and bees can be found everywhere, in the wild and in some corners of the house.
Key Takeaways
- Wasps are an insect that can be identified by their narrow waist and smooth, shiny bodies, while bees are a type of insect that their hairy bodies and flat legs can identify.
- Wasps are more aggressive and territorial than bees and can sting multiple times, while bees are less aggressive and die after stinging once.
- Wasps are more commonly found in late summer and early fall, while bees are more commonly found in the spring and summer.
Wasps vs Bees
Bees are more full-bodied, hairy and appear to be fuzzy, while wasps are slim-bodied, have slender legs and their body appears non-hairy and shiny. Bees are not predators while wasps are predators. Bees make their nests from wax, and wasps from paper-like chewed wood and their saliva.
A wasp is a kind of insect that can deliver painful stings. It is small and Black and Yellow. Wasps are common in Asia. The lifecycle of a wasp has four stages that are egg, larva, pupa, and adult.
Wasps can be one to one and a half-inch long. They have six legs and a pair of wings.
The singular form of bees is’ bee’ that also comes in Black and Yellow colors. Bees are insects that make honey. They tend to live in large groups and are found everywhere in the world.
Just like a wasp, the life cycle of a bee is also divided into four stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult, respectively.
Comparison Table
| Parameters Of Comparison | Wasps | Bees |
|---|---|---|
| Appearance | Wasps are fifteen to twenty mm long and have long legs and slimmer bodies with no hair. | Bees are oval-shaped and small. They are golden and yellow with brown streaks, also called bands. |
| Value | Wasps are vital because they kill other harmful insects. Wasps are considered great predators of insects. | Bees are excellent pollinators and essential for crops. Their wax is used in cosmetics. |
| Size | Wasps can be two centimeters long, but some of the wasps can be almost one and a half inches long. | Bees are comparatively smaller than wasps, and they can be a maximum of two to three cm long. |
| Lifespan | The lifespan of worker wasps is 12 to 22 days, while the queen can live up to a year. | Worker bees can live around thirty to sixty days while their queen lives for almost two years. |
| Nesting | Since wasps don’t have glands to produce wax, they make their nest (hive) by wood pulp. | Bees are remarkable insects. They manufacture their hives by producing and chewing the wax until it becomes softer. |
What is Wasps?
Wasps are a type of insect with yellow and black color. Wasps fly around hanging their legs down. The body of a wasp is divided into two sections and has a separate skeleton attached to the upper section.
The colony of wasps is started by the queen. The order belonging to bees is known as Hymenoptera.
The member of this order have narrowed waist but are different from ants and bees. Wasps are aggressive and sting a lot. They sometimes leave their few barbs in the skin of their victims that can be removed.
Wasps have two antennas and biting mouthparts. But the unique feature is that only the female wasps have stings.
These stings are capable of piercing and attached to venom-producing glands. Wasps are mainly divided into two parts, solitary wasps and social wasps.
Solitary wasps tend to live alone, while social wasps, as the name suggests, like to live in large colonies—10 percent of the species of wasps found to have a solidarity nature.
About 30 thousand species of wasps have been identified till now. They deliver painful stings but are beneficial for mankind by removing the pest insects from the environment.
They hunt these insects either to feed their larvae or to eat them. Hence, having this terrifying nature, wasps are surprisingly advantageous to the ecosystem.
What is Bees?
Bees are divided into many subcategories, for instance, honey bee, bumblebee, Apidae, stingless bee, carpenter bee, Trigona, and hundreds of more.
Antarctica is the only continent where bees aren’t found. Just like wasps, bees belong to the Hymenoptera order and are members of the Apidae family. Around 20 thousand different species of bees have been identified.
These species are very different, and some of them don’t even produce honey. Similarly, some of them can sting, and some can’t.
Bees are dependent on flowers and their nectar. Bees travel from place to place in search of nectar, and pollen gets stored in their fuzzy feeds.
Hence, they become an essential part of the pollination procedure. About 85 percent of crops are pollinated by bees.
Bees are the only insects that produce edible food, honey. Honey is very rich in vitamins, antioxidants, minerals, and it has a great sweet flavor.
Honey is used in many dishes. Beeswax has been used in cosmetics and manufacturing candles for centuries. Some doctors also used beeswax to fill cavities.
In modern times, beeswax is mixed with concrete polish, furniture waxes, and beauty products.
Bee stings have been considered advantageous for those suffering from diabetes. They leave barbs stuck in the skin, and these barbs should be removed as soon as possible because they produce venom and can be very painful if left untreated.
Main Differences Between Wasps and Bees
- Wasps are slick and shiny. They don’t have a single strand of hair. On the other hand, bees are very fuzzy and have lots of tiny hair.
- People keep bees to extract their honey and wax to sell. On the other hand, wasps are wild insects, and they aren’t Kept by people.
- Wasps are very beneficial for the environment because they remove certain types of other insects. On the other hand, bees are healthy for mankind by producing honey and wax pollinating the crops.
- The diet of wasps is food consumed by humans and other kinds of insects. On the other hand, bees live on eating nectar and pollen.
- Wasps are very aggressive, and they sting if interrupted. On the other side, bees have soft and gentle nature. They rarely sting.
- https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=QeGVqmfs_nIC&oi=fnd&pg=PR13&dq=Wasps&ots=6pzSvaDSwh&sig=MZsyfEjMeaJIVz9zfGXQno_eQkY
- https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=bu_1gmY13FIC&oi=fnd&pg=IA6&dq=bees&ots=YJ9GkdOGvd&sig=GAz1XYFOh-wfEZ7q0877OLFTwSc
Last Updated : 23 July, 2023
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Piyush Yadav has spent the past 25 years working as a physicist in the local community. He is a physicist passionate about making science more accessible to our readers. He holds a BSc in Natural Sciences and Post Graduate Diploma in Environmental Science. You can read more about him on his bio page.
