Bee and Wasp Anatomy Resources

Basic Bee Biology for Beekeepers (Mid-Atlantic Apicultural Research and Extension Consortium)

What is a Wasp-Hornet-Yellowjacket-Bee? (Whitney Cranshaw, Colorado State University Cooperative Extension)

Bee Anatomy (Capital Area Honeybee Stewards)

Anatomy and Biology of a Bee (SueBee Honey)

How Bees Work (Tracy Wilson, HowStuffWorks, Inc.)

Sawflies, Wasps, Bees, and Ants (Australian Museum)

Bees and Wasps (Greensmith's, Inc.)

General Bee and Wasp Anatomy

All insects have a hard exoskeleton, six legs, and three main body parts: the head, thorax, and abdomen. Bees, wasps, ants and sawflies are members of the Hymenoptera family and share several characteristics. All have four membranous wings, chewing or sucking mouthparts, compound eyes, and each undergoes complete metamorphosis. Bees, wasps, and ants are in the Suborder Apocrita. They are characterized by having a distinct waist - the first segment of the abdomen is incorporated into the thorax. Additionally, their larvae are maggot-like.

Bees and wasps are similar in many ways. However, there are differences between the two types of insects. One of the main differences is in the sting and how each injects its venom. Both bee and wasp stingers have barbs, or small backward-pointed hooks. The barbs allow the stinger to advance further into the victim. However, wasp barbs are smaller than bee barbs, allowing the wasp to extract the stinger from the victim and to sting again. Bee stingers remain embedded in the victim and are ripped away from the bee's abdomen, causing it to die after stinging just once. Another difference between bees and wasps is bees have very hairy legs to aid in pollen collection. Wasps tend to have far fewer hairs.

Honey Bee Anatomy

A graphic of the female honey bee anatomy.

The anatomy of a female honey bee ( Apis mellifera ). Graphic from WikipedianProlific. Image copyright Wikipedia.com.

Wasp Anatomy

Graphic of a female wasp anatomy.

The anatomy of a female wasp. Graphic from WikipedianProlific. Image copyright Wikipedia.com.

Three Types of Bees Make a Hive

There are three distinct adult bees found in a hive: the queen, the worker, and the drone. A queen bee is a fully developed adult female that is the mother of all the bees in the hive and typically larger than the other bees. There is a single queen bee and her job is to control the population of the colony. She leaves the hive on a single mating flight, where she mates with several drones and stores the spermatozoa in her reproductive storage sac. She has a straight stinger with no barbs allowing her to sting more than one victim. Her abdomen is longer than that of worker bees and contains female reproductive organs and the stinger.

A worker bee is an undeveloped female bee and is the smallest in the colony. There are often several thousand worker bees in the hive and their jobs are to build, clean, defend, and repair the hive as well as feed the larva, queen, and drone bees, gather nectar, pollen, and water, and ventilate the hive. A worker bee sting has barbs and is ripped away from the body of the bee when she stings, causing her to die. Her tongue is longer than that of the queen, and her abdomen lacks reproductive organs. A worker bee also has hind legs specialized for collecting pollen. Each leg is flattened and covered with long fringed hairs that form a pollen basket.

There are hundreds of drone bees per hive. Drones are male bees and their purpose is to mate with a queen during her mating flight. They then die after mating. Drones are stout-bodied and have eyes that are twice the size of worker and queen bees. They are larger than worker bees but shorter than the queen. The abdomen contains male reproductive organs, but lacks a stinger.

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