Last Year I Started Beekeeping - So Exciting

[sgtmom52]

Question for the bee experts. I'm hoping someone can help identify a flying insect we have building a nest under our steps. It's smaller then a honey bee but it almost looks like a bee except it doesn't look "hairy" like a honey bee. We've got concrete front steps and have been noticing these going in and out from under them. I've not been able to find anything on the internet about what they possibly could be. Anyone have an idea what they could be?

Does it look anything like the one on the right in this picture? The one on the left is a honey bee. The one on the right is a yellow jacket which is a type of wasp and will nest in cavities in the ground or under stairs. Colors can vary a bit, it could have more or less black on it.

 

[madamwlf]

It sort of does. I really need to kill one and get a picture of it. We did have a ground nest a few years ago that DH hit with a weed eater. Never knew they made ground nests. I'll try to get a picture of one if I can.

 

[sgtmom52]

Yellow jackets can be very nasty if their nest is disturbed. Unlike honeybees which die after they sting, all female members of the wasp family can sting multiple times. Wasps (including yellow jackets) will die off over the winter, with only a few new fertile queens surviving the winter. Typically they do not return to nest in the same spot as before.

 

[chigger bait]

It sort of does. I really need to kill one and get a picture of it. We did have a ground nest a few years ago that DH hit with a weed eater. Never knew they made ground nests. I'll try to get a picture of one if I can.

Oh yeah.

Around here, 90% of yellow jacket nest are in the ground.

I hate them things.

 

[sgtmom52]

Oh yeah.

Around here, 90% of yellow jacket nest are in the ground.

I hate them things.

I usually don't bother them unless the nest is in a really bad location. Yellow jackets are actually predators which eat other insects and can be beneficial. Since they die off in the winter in the states that get cold in the winter there is only a couple of months when they are a real nuisance.

 

[madamwlf]

I've seen these on flowers though. Unless they were hunting other bees.

 

[chigger bait]

The majority of times that you find them, it is to late.

The time of waling and the gnashing of teeth is at hand.

 

[galanie]

Yellow jackets and other wasps hunt the worms and bad things that eat your plants to stuff into their egg cells to feed their eggs when they hatch. Love them until they start building nests in bad places. Overall, I don't bother them and they don't bother me.

 

[chigger bait]

If they set up shop anywhere the grandkids can get into them, then they are gone.

Hopefully the neighborhood skunks keeps yellow jacket population down to a dull roar.

Skunks love yellow jackets and hornet nest, if they can get to them.

That is way I have my bee hives on foot and half or higher platforms to keep the skunks from getting their noses in the entrances..

 

[galanie]

I know plenty of people that just go nuts when they see a wasp and get stung. I was told when I was only around 5 to be still when one gets close to you. I did, and to this day largely ignore them unless they land on me. When they do, I just stay still and they will fly off w/out stinging me. It creeps people out if they see this but it works.