Is it a honey bee?
Is it a honey bee? Yellow jacket? or a Hornet?
Any thing that stings is usually referred to as a honey bee. Such as, "I just got stung by a honey bee!" Many people do not really know what stung them. What follows will help you decide.
First, if you are stung it helps if you place ice on the site of the sting. Or if you have them, swabs offered under the trade name "Sting-Kill" prove effective. This will help with the pain. Second, check for a stinger. If you find a stinger, then the insect that stung you is a honey bee. If you find a red spot with a white ring around it, and no stinger, then you most likely were stung by one of the commonly mistaken insects called honey bees. These insects look somewhat like a bee but differ in a number of respects.
Check out the pictures below. Are these honey bees?
Do they look like this?
Or do they look like this?
Often beekeepers get calls in the spring of the year concerning a swarm of honey bees. In the past many individuals got their start in beekeeping by catching a swarm. Picture number 3 in group 2 represents a typical swarm. Bee swarms have been known to settle on fence post, fire hydrants, automobiles, rural mailboxes, and on the side of houses. They often cause considerable alarm but bees in a new swarm are full of honey and are not as defensive as when in a hive.
The honey bees are in group 2 above if you haven't already guessed it. The top group are yellow jackets and the last picture is a reproduction from the 1952 Insects The Yearbook of Agriculture. As the picture indicates, this is a hornet nest and often is mistaken for a honey bee nest. Compare this last picture with the center picture of group 2. Notice that the honey bees do not build a paper covering around their comb. Usually honey bees will seek a cavity to build a nest, but they sometimes will build a nest in an exposed spot like this picture. In the top set of pictures, notice that the nest is built in a structure protected from the weather. This is typical of honey bees and yellow jackets.
Another important difference is that honey bees build their nest out of wax and it is built vertical to the ground. In both case with yellow jackets and hornets, their comb is build parallel with the ground with cells facing down rather than out to the side and their nest is made up of chewed fibers that are constructed into a protective paper covering up the actual comb which is also made up of a paper like substance.
Now as far as stings are concerned, be aware that yellow jackets and hornets have a smooth stinger which can be used more than once. A single insect of either family (Yellow jackets or Hornets) can inflict several stings just moments apart.
A honey bee can not use its stinger again following a stinging situation. The reason for this is that the stinger of a honey bee has barbs which remain attached to the stinging site and these barbs continue to work after the honey bee pulls free leaving its stinger behind. Of course the honey bee will die in a short time after it uses its stinger.
Below is a picture taken with a scanning electron microscope of a honey bees stinger. Note the barbs which catch and hold in the victim. A honey bee stinger also has a venom sac attached and this continues to pump venom into the wound. It is important to scrape a bee stinger from the sting site rather than grabbing the venom sac and squeezing it to pull the stinger out. By grabbing the venom sac, you are only squeezing more venom into the wound. See the picture below:
These pictures are from A Scanning Electron Microscope Atlas of the
Honey Bee by Eric H. Erickson, jr, Stanley D. Carlson, Martin B. Garment
published by the Iowa State University Press.
They are the business end of the honey bee as far as most people are concerned. One should realize that some honey bees are aggressive and some are quite gentle. The Africanized honey bee has received a great deal of attention because of the violent nature of stinging incidents. The European honey bee which is raised by beekeepers in the United States is not the aggressive "killer bee" described in the press. However, a single bee sting can kill an individual if that individual is allergic to bee stings. A normal reaction is swelling around the sting site and pain and maybe some minor itching. If one reacts with extreme itching and breaks out in hives -- this is not normal! See a doctor immediately. Even more dangerous situations can occur. If breathing become labored, immediate attention is required or death may result. It is very important that you get help at an emergency room and those who know they have a problem will have a kit to inject themselves immediately after the sting. Common treatment consist of applying ice to the wound. Some would advise the use of Benadryl but you should read the warning label on the bottle or package before using it. It is an over the counter drug available at drug stores.
Prepared by Dana Stahlman