Yellow jackets are a familiar sight during warmer months. Many people frequently confuse these social insects with bees, particularly when observing their social structures and the presence of a queen. This article aims to clarify the distinctions, explaining the true nature of yellow jackets and the unique role their queens play in the colony’s life cycle.
Yellow Jackets: Not Bees
Despite their similar black and yellow coloration, yellow jackets are not bees; they are a type of wasp. Yellow jackets belong to the genera Vespula and Dolichovespula within the family Vespidae, while bees, such as honey bees, are classified under the superfamily Apoidea. Bees are primarily herbivores, specialized for collecting nectar and pollen, which they use to feed their young and produce honey. In contrast, yellow jackets are omnivorous predators and scavengers, feeding on other insects, meat, and sugary substances.
The Yellow Jacket Queen’s Role
Yellow jackets have a queen, whose role is central to colony establishment and continuation, though her life cycle differs significantly from a honey bee queen. The yellow jacket queen is the sole survivor of winter, emerging from hibernation in protected locations during late spring or early summer. She independently selects a nest site and constructs a small paper nest from chewed wood fibers mixed with saliva. In this initial nest, she lays 30 to 50 eggs. Once they hatch into larvae, she feeds them with scavenged meat and other insects.
These first offspring develop into sterile female workers, who then take over expanding the nest, foraging for food, and caring for subsequent larvae. With their help, the queen remains inside the nest for the season, continuously laying eggs. A yellow jacket colony can expand rapidly, reaching 4,000 to 5,000 workers and 10,000 to 15,000 cells by late summer. In late summer and fall, the colony produces new males and fertile queens. These new queens mate, seek sheltered locations to overwinter, and perpetuate the annual cycle, while the old queen and workers perish with cold temperatures.
Key Differences from Bees
Beyond their fundamental classification, many distinctions separate yellow jackets from bees, particularly honey bees. Physically, yellow jackets have a sleek, smooth, shiny body with vivid yellow and black markings and a slender waist. Honey bees, conversely, have a more rounded, fuzzy body with a duller golden-brown or amber coloration and lack the pronounced wasp waist. Honey bees also possess hairy hind legs adapted for collecting pollen, a feature absent in yellow jackets.
Nesting habits also vary. Yellow jackets build nests underground in abandoned rodent burrows, tree cavities, or within wall voids, constructing them from a paper-like pulp. Honey bees build wax combs within sheltered locations like tree hollows or man-made hives.
Regarding diet, honey bees are strict vegetarians, relying solely on nectar and pollen. Yellow jackets are opportunistic omnivores, preying on other insects and scavenging for proteins and sugars from various sources, including human food and garbage. Their stinging behavior differs; yellow jackets possess a lance-like stinger with small barbs, allowing them to sting multiple times, while honey bees have a barbed stinger that remains in the victim, leading to the bee’s death after a single sting.