How to Discern a Yellow Jacket From a Honey Bee

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In the early spring, our gardens are visited by honeybees and, of course, they are necessary to fulfill the cycle in pollinating our flowers. However, we also get bees that look like honeybees, which are called yellow jackets. They are very aggressive and dangerous and need to be removed as soon as they are discovered and before people get hurt. Many people confuse the innocent honeybee with the yellow jacket because they are very similar in appearance. However, there are ways that you can discern one from the other. Read on to learn how to discern a yellow jacket from a honey bee.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Step1

Keep in mind that honeybees land wherever there is pollen on flowering plants. If you watch closely, you’ll see them fly from one flower to the next in search of pollen. They rarely ever land on anything that isn’t pollen. So, if you see a bee doing this, chances are it’s the honeybee.

Step2

Understand the yellow jacket also lands on plants in the early spring but not to pollinate and so they stay away from anything with pollen. They go to the leaves of fruit and veggies to eat the little caterpillars and harmful flies. By mid-summer they turn from insects to eat “people food.” They come to your picnic table and land on your food because they eat what you eat. If one lands on your plate, you’ll know it is a yellow jacket. These aggressive bees want your food and aren’t easily shooed away, but instead, will sting you to get you to leave.

Step3

The honeybee is slightly larger and has a honey basket on its rear legs, where the yellow jacket does not.

Step4

The honeybee has a barbed stinger that can only be used once. It does not grow back or refill. This bee will only use their stinger for defense when attacked. The yellow jacket has a smooth stinger that can be used repeatedly and refills constantly. In an attack, this bee can sting several times within minutes. It is the poison venom from this stinger that can be dangerous and deadly to those people who are allergic to it.

Step5

Honeybees are very passive and will escape quickly when you shoo them away, but the yellow jacket is extremely aggressive and does not leave. Instead it fights to stay by stinging you. In many cases, it will return to its nest and come back with a swarm of bees to fight you.

Step6

Know honeybees live in a honey cone in a somewhat sunny location. The yellow jacket lives in refuge places like underground nests or in wood piles or rotten tree trunks.

Tips & Warnings

If you believe you have yellow jackets, you do not want to try and swat them away as they could come back at you with an army of stinging bees. You need to find their nest and spray it with poison at night when they are all in there sleeping, so that you can be sure to get all of them.