Bee Vs Wasp (Insects).

Notable Bee Variations: Bumble, Queen.
Habitat: Beehives, Big Trees, Loft Conversions.

Notable Wasp Variations: Those thin ones that are even more scary, Hornets.
Habitat: Ice Creams, Plates of Ham, Loitering around Swimming Pools.

When summer comes, it's tempting to venture out into the garden to enjoy being lazy. And what better way to enjoy the warm weather than with a picnic or barbeque? But who knows what evil lurks in wait for you at the bottom of the garden...

Another picnic ruined.

First Impressions:

First impressions are certainly more favourable to the bee than to the wasp: bees are friendlier, live in funny little houses called hives, make honey, and are dressed to impress in a stunning little yellow and black ensemble. Wasps share the colour code, but their leathery shell suited bodies don't even compare sartorially to that of their flower loving cousins. This look is compounded by the obvious fact that 'yellow jackets' seem to be designed purely for inflicting pain. Facially, the bee looks like a happy insect with a stable background and impeccable manners. For the bumble, this goes double. Facially, the wasp looks like a cross between a welding mask, a shard of broken glass and a verruca.

Despite the fact that they are capable of stinging people on the legs, bees are much, much less scary than wasps. Indeed, part of the bee's appeal must be due to the fact that their weapon of considerable magnitude can be deployed only once. It is, if you like, the equivalent of the self destruct mechanism favoured by spaceships across the galaxy. Once the bee decides to sting, it knows that it's kamikaze self buckwheating actions will help to protect the rest of it's friends and family from being trodden on. The wasp, by contrast, has the ability to sting and sting again. It is about 50 times more scary than the bee. Other stinging animals more scary than bees include the scorpion, which has three stings (but mercifully cannot fly - imagine the horror if it could); the stingray, excellent denizen of the aquatic realm, which despite not being able to fly is able to glide; and finally the Alien from the Alien films, which would be very scary if it was real.

Luckily not all wasps have red eyes.
If they did, we'd probably never leave the house.

Behaviour:

For a start, bees tend to mind their own business when it comes to picnicking in the countryside. Wasps see a picnic as an opportunity to show off to each other by seeing who can annoy and scare the most people. Bees spend their days looking for flowers to make honey for our toast, wasps spend their days looking for our toast.

Bees, and this is without doubt their top feature, dance. It's how they tell other bees where all the food is, and is really clever. Here's how it all works. If a bee dances, as below, 20 degrees before the vertical (pink=direction of dance, yellow=vertical), then all the other bees know that for a meal, they need to head 20 degrees to the left of the sun. Ingenious!

This bee could be revealing the location
of a packet of Bacon Frazzles. Could you find it?

Wasps have so far not revealed their passion for the foxtrot or lambada - they just swagger around, which in Bee language is tantamount to swearing.

In all, the bee is a self effacing little person, who sees humans as the other side of a mutually beneficial partnership - you plant flowers, and you can have some of this honey to eat. Wasps seemingly exist to do nothing but contrast the excellence of the bee.

Good Pet/Bad Pet:

Wasp - rubbish pet, unless its a pet trapped under a wine glass, with it's doom imminent. Then, it's a very good pet (although captive might be a more accurate description)

Bee - tricky one, this. The panel is torn, as bees tend to come as part of a swarm which sounds like rather hard work. On the other hand - free honey. And plenty of dancing. So probably a good pet.

Keeping bees is also the perfect excuse for
dressing up in one of those funny suits.

Celebrity Owner:

Bee: The following celebrities may or may not be the proud owners of a bee and/or hive:

• Ozzy Osbourne
• Martin Luther King
• Bee-Real from Cypress Hill

Wasp:The following celebrities may or may not be the disgraced owners of a Wasp:

• Simon
• Garfunkel
• Frank Sinatra
• Missy Elliot

Verdict:

Overall, bees are excellent and wasps are not. To sum up:

Bee:

+ Impressive air speed, low drag
+ Silly dancing
+ Community spirited
+ Bumblebees

- Little variation in tastes of different honeys, despite the promises on the front of the jars

Wasp:

+ Nothing

- Everything

Overall Bee Score: 9.1/10

Overall Wasp Score: 1.3/10

Only the Honeybee is a single stinger, all other bees can sting many times but cannot penetrate the human skin.

Scorpions do not have barbed stingers, and so must be able to sting more than your insinuated 3 times because they use the sting to paralyse their prey - they wouldn't last long in the world with just three meals.

You might want to get the books out.

Glyn Jones

Hi Glyn,

What about Bumble Bees?

They sting humans, and I know because I've been stung on the arm by one. I'm fairly sure it broke the skin too, judging by my language at the time.

As for scorpions - although we didn't actually mention them having barbed stingers, or how often they might use them - we apologise if anyone else was tricked into jumping to such conclusions. As Glyn was kind enough to point out: They *do* have three stingers, and they *can* use them as often as they
like.

Thanks for the email,
Theo and Max

Dear Marge Proops,

I was once eating a nice afternoon tea outside during the dread august/september wasp frenzy period. I managed to catch one under a tea cup.

Or so I thought!

The real horror of the situation became clear when I lifted the rim of the cup, only to find that the head had been severed from the body. Worse still, the head was clearly still alive, and was walking around the tabletop in a most ungainly way using just it's feelers. I fed the head some jam (what was I thinking? Why didn't I run away?), but because there was no body for the jam to pass into it just fell out of the back of the head. Absolutely ghastly. The head survived for a whole two hours, all the while waving its feelers imploringly for more jam. This did not fit with the rules of biology and was extremely unsettling. Afterwards I needed a nice lie down.

This unnatural, some might say unearthly event is surely a reason to lower the wasp score. I think a -1 for the nasty bit of work. Who/what the hell does it think it is anyway? Do we take this to mean that even small portions of wasp (or worse - any insect) could live independently and move about as though they were whole animals?

It is a travesty of all that is normal.

• What if a whole army of earwig legs were to invade Newmarket wearing little boots?
• What if a hideous hornet thorax had delusions of grandeur and took over broadcasting house?
• What if it were rude to Natasha Kerplunkski?

I'm not sure I can bear the thought of it. I'm off to put on some soothing music and sniff some lavender.

Marge, please help.

(This is actually a true story and was really quite awful).

Emma

Hi Emma,

Thank you for sharing what must have been a harrowing encounter that few of us would ever care to witness. Your garden on that fateful day must have resembled a Don McCullin retrospective.

The only problem with dropping the wasp score by a point is that by doing so, dolphins would become even more conceited than they are now. Wasps are pretty rubbish, but no way are they as rubbish as dolphins.

All the best,
Theo & Max

The legendary guitar virtuoso Steve Vai, of Frank Zappa, Alcatrazz, David Lee Roth, Whitesnake, numerous others, and solo album fame, is an avid bee keeper. You might add him to the list.

I grew up in rural northern Ky, USA, and I hate wasps. Good for nothing but nesting under outdoor windowsills and deck railings (the favorite brushing spot of young tike's hands).

J Boling, Cincinnati.