With luck, you should be able to identify - and remove - the particular stinging pest threatening to ruin your end-of-summer outings. While bees, wasps, and hornets may all share some things in common - wings, stingers, nests, and colors - a closer look shows that all three are actually quite different.
Of all stinging insect pests to worry about, bees should almost always be at the bottom of the list. Although some bee species do have the potential to sting, many - especially honeybees - can be perfectly harmless, and are often looking for nothing more than a steady supply of pollen and a place to build a nest. Honeybees - as the name implies - are the only flying insects that produce honey. While a swarm of honeybees can be frightening, they are generally harmless - and because bees offer huge benefits to natural habitats, these swarms should be safely removed and relocated by a professional when spotted.
Other bee species - like carpenter bees - can be a real nuisance, sometimes boring holes in wood to create nests for their young. Carpenter bees are generally solitary insects, and will not swarm like honey bees. Males also have no stinger, and so cannot sting when threatened. While females are physically able to sting, they rarely will unless roughly handled.
Mostly active in spring and summer, carpenter bees can be quickly and safely removed by a stinging insect professional. While easy to mistake for your average bee from a distance, wasps actually come from a different family of insects under the same order, Hymenoptera. The nanomechanical characterization of wasp and honeybee stingers has been performed employing quasi-static nanoindentation instrument.
The average elastic modulus and hardness and their mapping on the surface along the longitudinal and cross sectional directions of the stingers have been obtained. The structures of these stingers have been analyzed using a 3D-micro computed tomography technique.
In addition, the mechanical deformation and stress distribution in the stingers, under compressive loading conditions, have been modelled by feeding its 3D-computed tomography images. A comparison of these properties between wasp and honeybee stingers is presented.
Based on the understanding of these investigations, a design of a micro syringe-needle is presented. The structures, nanomechanical properties, and mechanical behavior during penetration of stingers will inspire the product designers to fabricate various biomedical devices like micro syringe-needle system for drug delivery, hard tissue biopsy needle, surgical suture etc.
The wasps Vespula vulgaris and honeybees Apis cerana were collected from the nearby region of the Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, Punjab, India The stingers were extracted from the female wasps and worker honeybees, located on the posterior end. The specimen preparation procedure has been followed from previous research 4 , 5 , and this does not affect the physical properties of the stingers.
In this segmentation process, the built-in median filter and the flood fill tool were used to reduce noise. The nanoindentation instrument was employed for quasi-static nanomechanical property measurements elastic modulus and hardness of stingers 6 , 7. A total of five 5 samples of both wasp and honeybee stingers were measured.
The stinger has intrinsic curvature and to avoid this curvature effect, the entire stinger was cut into three sections basal, medial and apical regions and the ventral surfaces of each were put on the semi-solid epoxy block and stuck on it carefully. The embedded samples were examined by an optical microscope to ensure that they were fixed properly. The calibration of the instrument was performed with the help of standard fused quartz and polycarbonate samples following the standard procedure 6.
The mapping images were superimposed onto the CT image of the stinger for more clear visualization of the modulus and the hardness variations along the longitudinal direction of the stinger. The same technique which was used for wasp stinger was repeated to get the mapping of the elastic modulus and hardness. To perform the quasi-static nanoindentation at the cross section of the stingers, the stingers were vertically embedded within a small semisolid epoxy block where the tip was placed inside the epoxy and the base was kept just outside the top surface of the epoxy block.
Samples of both the wasp and honeybee stingers were prepared in that way and their cross sections were observed using an SPM attached with the nanoindentation instrument. The elastic modulus and hardness mapping were also generated in this case. The load verses penetration curves were obtained from these experiments. The reduced elastic modulus or effective elastic modulus E and the hardness H were obtained from these curves.
A numerical model was developed to study the effect of penetration angle on the deformation using measured mechanical properties. The number of elements in this model was , For simulation, the average material properties obtained from nanoindentation were used.
During simulation, the stingers were considered as linear elastic and isotropic and were clamped at the base all the rotational and translational degree of freedom constrained. In the second case, the gradient mechanical properties were applied to the stinger. In Scan IP, the 3-D model of the stinger was divided into three sections and every section was defined by individual masks, followed by meshing with C3D4 elements. After exporting the model to Abaqus, the three different nanoindentation moduli were applied to these three sections.
Then the simulation was performed applying the same procedures as mentioned before. Different views dorsal, ventral and transparent view of the wasp stinger are presented in Fig. The wasp stinger can be sectioned longitudinally into three regions; basal, medial and apical.
The stingers have three major components; stylet, lancet and tip. There are paired lancets, one stylet and a tip. The wasp stinger has an intrinsic curvature with a bulb type base, a slender medial region having constant diameter, and an apical region with decreasing diameter and tapered tip. In the ventral view of the wasp stinger, the location of the natural orifice is pointed out, and in the transparent view, the venom propagation cylindrical path is designated by the yellow arrow.
The venom is stored in the venom sack located at the lower abdomen of the wasp which is connected to the bulb of the stinger. It is observed that the stylet and lancets have hollow shaft and their radii decrease from the base to tip.
The hollow structures diminish near the apical region and are transformed into solid structures. The cylindrical hollow venom propagation path is also visible. The wasp stinger has an average length of 2. The dorsal to ventral major diameter is denoted by D1 and the lateral major diameter is denoted by D2.
The values of D1 and D2 in all regions are presented in Fig. The lateral diameter D2 of the wasp stinger in all regions is greater than the dorsal to ventral diameter D1. The diameters determined here are the average diameters of all five 5 wasp stinger samples. The wasp pierces approximately 1. This length has been referred based on the height of the venom orifice from the tip of the stinger.
It shows that the two lancets converge in the apical region. The cross section of the base of the wasp stinger is shown in Fig. Both of the cross sectional views of the base reveal the structure of the stylet, lancets and the venom canal. The stylet and lancets have hollow shafts and their radius decreases from the base towards the tip. These structural features make the stinger lightweight and strong. It has been reported in wasp and honeybee stingers, the hollow shaft makes them lightweight 1.
The gradient geometry of the sting like structures like scorpion stinger 2 and the spider fang 8 potentially improve their mechanical stability, durability and biological functions.
Based on this, it is expected that the gradient geometry decreasing cross section from base to tip of the wasp and honeybee stinger, also improves mechanical stability and durability.
The internal cross section at the medial region are shown in Fig. The internal cross sections are shown from two different directions, from inside to base and from inside to tip.
A reinforcement rib is present in the ventral side of the medial region. The dorsal, ventral and transparent views of the honeybee stinger are exhibited in Fig.
Like the wasp stinger, the honeybee stinger is also sectioned into three regions basal, medial and apical and has three major components paired lancets, one stylet and tip. The honeybee stinger has a straight geometry unlike the curved geometry of the wasp stinger and has the basal region, medial region, apical region and tip geometries similar to that of the wasp stinger.
The length of the honeybee stinger is in the order of 1. The values of D1 and D2 in all regions are affixed in Fig. In the honeybee stinger unlike the wasp stinger, the lateral diameter D2 in all regions except apical region is less than the dorsal to ventral diameter D1.
The reverse facing barbs are distinctive and symmetrically distributed near the subapical region of the stingers as magnified and encircled in Fig. The reverse facing barbs are visible but are not prominent. The unique orientation of these barbs facilitates the penetration of the honeybee stinger into the objects. The lancets freely slide onto the rails of the stylet as per schematic representation in a. In Fig. The pumping and insertion mechanism are caused by the movements of the three paired plates which are controlled by the muscles.
The moving plates drive the lancets to freely slide onto the rails of the stylet. The stylet has paired rails in which the grooves of the lancets are suitably fitted. The venom is discharged through the gap generated near the tip due to relative sliding motion of the lancets.
The cross sectional views of the base from the outside and from the inner side are presented in the Fig. The lancets, stylet and venom canal all have hollow structures. The cross sectional views of the honeybee stingers at medial, apical and subapical regions Fig. However, as shown in Fig. The diameter of the venom canal gradually decreases after the apical region and becomes smaller near the tip. The wasp stinger has an intrinsic curvature and reinforcement rib at its medial region whereas the honeybee stinger does not have these features.
Measured 3D structures of both wasp and honeybee stingers were directly fed into the computational framework for further biomechanical studies. The quasi-static nanoindentation results of the wasp and honeybee stinger are shown in Figs 3 and 4 , respectively. The approximate sites of nanoindentation are denoted by the nodes of the mesh depicted on the dorsal surface of the wasp stinger as shown in Fig. Yellowjackets are the most recognizable as they have yellow and black stripes and most closely resemble bees.
Hornets are often more orange in color and paper wasps are a brownish shade and smaller in size to other wasps. Typically, the first signs of a wasp infestation are nests somewhere near your home or business property. Wasps may be attracted to your property for a number of reasons. Exterminators explain gutters are one of their favorite places to nest, so these insects are naturally attracted to spaces like this.
These flying pests may also be attracted to your home or business in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, or Delaware if you have a lot of flowers or plants close by. Any other door space with food or drink residue will pique their interest.
The most frustrating consequence of a wasp infestation is the possibility of stings, especially for people who are allergic, which could be deadly. Less than 5 percent of bee species make honey. Only honey bees and stingless bees produce enough honey to make it worth harvesting. Bumble bee hives may have a small amount one to two teaspoons. Only social bees live in hives. Most bees are solitary, living in individual nests tunneled in the soil or in tree trunks.
Honey bee, bumble bee and stingless bee worker bees females work very hard. Females of the solitary bee species may only work for a couple weeks. Solitary bees live only a few weeks—just long enough to mate, build nests and produce offspring.
Honey and bumble bee workers and males live about six weeks. The workers spend half their time working on the hive and the other half foraging for pollen and nectar.
The queens live longer. Bumble bee queens live up to one year, and honey bee queens can live up to four years. If you've spotted large, black ants in or near your house along with small piles of what looks like sawdust, there's a chance you may have wood ants.
As their name might suggest, wood ants — also called carpenter ants — can cause structural damage to wooden parts of your home. Summer is a great time for picnics, swimming, hiking and other outdoor activities. But you're not the only one enjoying the sunny weather.
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