At first glance, wasps and bees can look identical (especially if you’re swatting at them frantically while running away, screaming.) But, learning what characteristics differentiate these insects from one another can make it easier to tell them apart.

Wasps and Bees Have Different Body Characteristics

Wasps and bees share the characteristic black and yellow body colorings, which makes them look similar, but they have key differences.

Bees have short, fat, hairy bodies with shorter legs and wings. Bumble bees are markedly larger than honey bees and wasps, which makes them easier to differentiate from their cousins.

Wasps are longer and thinner than bees with longer legs and wings. Their smooth bodies have clearly distinct sections and their legs dangle as they fly.

Wasps and Bees Live in Different Habitats

Although wasps and bees live in colonies, their habitats are easier to differentiate. Bees live in architecturally geometric hives. These hives consist of hexagonal cells made of wax. This is where they store honey and pollen and house their eggs and larvae.

Bee hives usually have a single opening which the bees use as an entrance/exit. Hives can contain as many as 40,000 bees during spring.  Bees have been known to build hives in the roofs and outer walls of homes.

Social wasps live in paper-like nests or in underground burrows. Wasps can build nests in attics and under awnings, on trees, and other covered areas that provide a suitable shelter. Paper wasps construct their nests from bits of wood which they chew and mix with saliva to produce a papery substance. Some types of wasps build vase-like nests made of mud.

Wasps and Bees Have Different Feeding Habits

All bees are pollinators, they feed on nectar and honey which they produce from pollen harvested from flowers. Wasps are carnivores; they feed on other insects.

Wasps and Bees Have Behavioral Differences

Bees are not aggressive unless provoked. Honey bees have barbed stingers that produce venom, which they use to defend their nests and themselves. After stinging, the stinger detaches and remains in the victim’s skin while the honey bee flies away a dies. Bumble bees have pointed stingers that don’t detach, so like wasps, they can repeatedly sting a victim.

Wasps are considered more aggressive because they are easily provoked. They have sharp stingers and can sting repeatedly.  When a wasp feels it or its nest is threatened, it releases a pheromone that alerts all members of the nest. Threatened wasps will swarm victims, stinging them repeatedly.

Bees and wasps may seem intimidating, but they generally leave humans alone when left alone.

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