Bees and wasps are insects in the Hymenoptera order, along with ants and sawflies. Both live in colonies with queens, workers, and males. But there are important differences between honey bees and wasps in their social structures and reproduction.
A honey bee colony revolves around one queen. She mothers all the hive’s bees. Mating with male drones, the queen lays fertilized eggs, which become sterile female workers. At her peak, she can live 5 years and lay 2,000 eggs daily! The queen also secretes pheromones regulating colony activities.
Worker bees maintain the hive, feed larvae, gather nectar/pollen, and support the queen. In late summer/fall, she lays unfertilized eggs that become male drones. They mate with young queens to start new colonies.
The colony works together as a single, cohesive unit devoted to supporting the queen and raising the next generation of bees. There is a clear hierarchy and division of labor. If the queen dies and there are no new queen cells, the worker bees will select several young larvae to be raised as queens.
Wasp Colonies and Queens
In contrast to honey bees, wasp colonies do not always have a single queen ruling the nest. About 75% of wasp species are solitary while the rest are social and live in colonies.
Social wasps like yellowjackets and hornets build intricate paper nests out of chewed wood fiber. The founding queen or queens begin constructing the first few cells of the nest in the spring. After laying some initial eggs that develop into sterile female workers, these workers take over expanding the nest while the queen focuses on reproduction.
Late in the season, many social wasp colonies will begin to produce reproductive females and males. These reproductive wasps leave the nest, mate, and then the newly fertilized queens find sheltered spots like hollow trees or under bark to overwinter. The old colony dies out in winter after producing new reproductive wasps.
Spring Founding Queens
In the spring, the newly mated queens emerge and begin the nest building and colony founding process over again. Many species of social wasps have this seasonal lifecycle of colony founding by an overwintered queen or group of queens. The large nests visible in late summer are started each spring anew.
However, some species can have perennial nests that survive multiple years with the same queens. So unlike honey bees that always have one queen, wasp colonies can be founded by one or more mated queens, and these nests may or may not last season to season.
Wasp Queen Pheromones
Social wasp queens do produce queen pheromones that help regulate certain colony activities and behaviors of the workers. However, they do not maintain the complete control over the colony that honey bee queens do.
There is evidence that wasp queen pheromones function as an “honest signal” of her reproductive capacity. As the queen ages or loses fertility, the changes in pheromone signals can trigger the workers to rear new reproductive females late in the season.
It seems queen pheromones in wasps help coordinate the reproductive cycle of the colony rather than strictly enforce the dominance of the queen herself year-round as in honey bees.
Caste Systems
Both honey bees and social wasps have specialized female castes – queens, workers, and in some species, intermediates. However, the honey bee caste system adheres more strictly to complete reproductive division of labor.
Wasps show much more variability in tasks among individuals. Large workers may take on queen-like roles, small workers forage, sometimes there are multiple egg-layers, etc. So there is more flexibility and overlap between wasp worker castes than strict behavioral divisions found in bees.
In honey bees, the female larvae destined to be workers subsist on worker jelly while future queens are fed rich royal jelly. This difference in nutrition triggers the developmental divergence between incredibly fertile queens and completely sterile workers.
With wasps, the difference between queens and workers has more to do with timing of maturation rather than diet. Fertilized wasp eggs have the capacity to develop into either workers or queens depending on larval stages and when the larvae terminates development to pupate into adults.
Worker Wasp Reproduction
In many social wasp species, workers retain functional ovaries and can lay unfertilized eggs. These eggs develop into males. Worker wasps do not mate and cannot produce fertilized eggs like a queen.
Having worker wasps raise males may help supplement the overall reproductive output of the colony late in the season. However, the queen discourages worker reproduction through pheromones and aggressive behavior while she is fertile.
In honey bees, the extreme reproductive division of labor means that workers cannot mate or reproduce at all. Their ovaries remain stunted their whole lives.
Nest Construction
Honey bees build wax combs in their hives to store honey and house developing brood. In contrast, most social wasps build a single-comb nest structure out of paper. The envelope-like cells house larvae and give emerging adults a place to pupate.
Building nests out of wood fiber makes wasp nests quite durable and resistant to predators. However, they cannot be reused – the nests do not survive winter weather and wasps must build anew the next year.
Comparisons of Reproductive Strategies
Honey bees and social wasps employ different reproductive strategies. Bees create perennial colonies focused intensely on one queen. Wasps follow a more boom-and-bust, seasonal strategy with flexible caste roles and the possibility of many reproductive females.
There is no single pattern for highly eusocial true queen and colony dynamics across the Hymenopterans. Both bees and wasps coordinate complex colonial lives yet take different routes to reproductive cooperation and success. Understanding the diversity of their biology and social behaviors continues to fascinate biologists.
In Summary
While wasps and bees are both social insects, there are some key differences:
– Honey bee colonies always have one queen while wasp nests may be founded by one or several queens.
– Wasp nests typically die over winter while bee hives can persist for years.
– Honey bee queens have absolute control over reproduction whereas some wasp workers can lay eggs.
– The wasp caste system is more flexible with less strict divisions of labor.
– Wasp queens produce queen pheromones but they function differently than those of bees.
So in many wasp species, there is no equivalent to the solitary queen ruling the hive year after year as with honey bees. They may have founding queens, but often a colony is started each spring by one or more fertilized females. Overall, wasps and bees evolved similar social lifestyles independently – leading to some similarities as well as important biological differences between these groups of insects.