Pest of the Week-Bees

Bees are very beneficial to our environment. We need them to pollinate plants, and they make tasty honey. Honey bees are well-known for their honey making. They have been important for thousands of years for human food consumption. Also, honey bees create bee’s wax that is also collected by humans. There has been a severe decline in bee population in the last decade and this is not good for our farmers or our food products. without the population of bees pollinating our plants, the plants will not grow as strong and healthy as they should.

Bees come in all shapes and sizes, the biggest being bumble bees. Here are three of the most common bees found in Iowa:

TYPES OF BEES

HONEY BEES
Honey bees are social bees; they live in extensive colonies that have thousands of bees in it. The colony consist of one queen bee, hundreds of drones (fertile male bees), and thousands of worker bees (infertile females). The queen lays all the eggs and is the most important bee in the colony, without the queen the colony will collapse. The drones are created from unfertilized eggs, the drone’s job is to grow and leave the colony to mate with queen bees. Drones cannot sting. The worker’s job is to care for the nest. They leave the colony for food (nectar) and take care of the eggs, protect the queen, and protect the nest.

Honey bees’ nest stay around all year. During the winter, the hive stops flying around and huddle together. They can keep the center of the huddle at a constant temperature of 85

degrees throughout the whole winter. The colony usually begins working again once spring begins. Honey bees are important, but are facing a type of disease that is killing them off in large numbers. No one seems to understand why this is happening, though. The honey bee is so important to farmers that some usually rent colonies of bees to pollinate their crops from beekeepers. CARPENTER BEES Carpenter bees are usually solitary bees, but they have been known to live in very small colonies consisting of their sisters or daughters. Carpenter bees look very similar to bumble bees, but the main difference is the lack of hair on carpenter bees compared to bumble bees. Carpenter’s abdomens tend to have a shiny black abdomen. Carpenter bees are also important to pollinating flowers. Carpenter Bees will drill holes into exposed wood. The usually will drill on the bottom side of the wood. Often in Iowa they are found drilling holes and tunnels into the wood on the bottom side of decks. The hole goes about 1/2 inch then makes a 90 degree turn below the surface and goes with the grain up to 1 foot. Carpenter bees are usually not a threat to sting. They do not eat the wood; they get their food from nectar in flowers. BUMBLE BEES Bumble bees are probably the most recognized type of insect by every one of all ages. Bumble bees are easily recognized by their yellow and black body that looks to be soft because of the hair-like pile covering their bodies. They also tend to have a louder “buzz” compared to other bees, just because of their size. Bumble bees live in small colonies of about 50-100 bumble bees. The colony is like most other social bees. They consist of a queen and workers. The queen chooses the location of the nest every year, and who lays all the eggs. The workers tend to the nest and eggs and are not able to lay eggs. Their nests are usually built in the ground and only stay around for a year at a time. Unlike the honey bees, the bumble bee does not have barbs on their stinger, so bumble bees can sting more than once. Bumble bees are protective of their nest and will only attack if their nest is threatened. This can be dangerous, because their nests are usually very hard to find and can easily be stepped on without realizing it. Bumble bees also are very good pollinators. Since their bodies are fuzzy, pollen from the anthers of flowers gets stuck on the “fur-like” pile, when they collect nectar. Bumble bees tend to go to the same flowers every day, as long as it keeps producing enough nectar. Once they collect the nectar they take it back to their nests, and put it in wax cells for food storage. Nothing to the sorts of honey bees, though.