Bees & Wasps Bees and wasps are both feared and loved People love to eat sweet honey Beeswax is used to make candles lotions and hundreds of other products Bees and some wasps pollinate crops Wasps eat insect pests that invade farm fields and destroy crops
XTREME FACT There are more than 20,000 species of bees and 100,000 species of wasps There are more species of these insects than birds and mammals combined However bees and wasps are armed with stingers and venom Their stings are painful For people who are allergic the venom can be deadly But overall the benefits of these amazing insects greatly outweigh their disadvantages They are vital to human survival
Body Parts Bees and wasps like all insects have six legs and three distinct body parts head thorax and abdomen BEE Bees have two sets of A honeybee's wings wings attached to the beat at a rate of thorax 400 to 500 times Head per second They can fly at a speed of Antennae 16 to 19 miles per hour 26 to 31 kph Eyes Mandibles Abdomen The proboscis is a hollow straw like mouth part that rolls up when not in use It extends to suck or lap up nectar water or honey The legs are covered in Stinger hairs which After a bee stings collect pollen the barbed lancet remains in the skin of its victim When the bee flies away its poison sac and stinger rip out of its body The bee dies shortly after stinging
Although they look similar to bees wasps have a slimmer frame a narrower waist thinner legs and a shiny often hairless body They are shaped to hunt for food not forage Their stingers are not barbed like their bee cousins They are able to sting withdraw and sting again over and over WASP Four transparent Wings Thorax Head Eyes Abdomen Antennae Mandibles Stinger Jointed Legs Petiole This narrow waist section separates the thorax and the abdomen and allows the wasp to bend and twist Claws
