"Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it, so it goes on flying anyway." Mary Kay Ash


While writing the last instalment of the Epistream, I suddenly realised that I had a distinct Hymenoptera knowledge deficiency.

I know, I know, I'm gutted. Don't tell anyone, but I didn't even know what Hymenoptera were.

Having sorted that out now, I'm glad to be able to share a bit more about these interesting insects and put the heinous oversight behind me. So, here is everything you'll ever want to know about them. Apart from how to get rid of them.

Ok, here goes.

Hymenoptera:

* One of the larger insect order, comprising the sawfly, wasp, bee and ant.
* The name refers to the membranous wings of the insects. It's derived from the Ancient Greek words 'humen' (ὑμήν), meaning membrane, and 'pteron' (πτερόν), meaning wing. Their hind wings are connected to their forewings by a series of hooks called hamuli.
* Females typically have a special ovipositor for inserting eggs into hosts. The ovipositor often evolves into their sting.
* The young develop through metamorphosis. That is, they have a worm-like larval stage and an inactive pupal stage before reaching maturity.
* Hymenoptera originated in the Triassic period, the oldest fossils belonging to the family Xyeldae. Social hymenopterans appeared during the Cretaceous.

The order divides into two sub-categories: the Symphyta (sawflies) and the Apocryta (wasps, bees and ants).

Symphyta

* Sawfly adults look like wasps, except they don't have a waist.
* They don't have a sting either.
* They don't form social groups like bees and ants but their larvae do stay together for the defence.
* The females have a special egg-laying tool, a bit like a saw funnily enough, to cut through leaf tissue.
* Sawfly larvae are caterpillar-ish, with five or more abdominal prolegs.


Apocryta

* Apocryta are far more diverse than Symphyta.
* They have one common characteristic - a waist.
* They live in a highly organized group and each member are divided into castes.
* A special genetic configuration (haploid-diploid sex determination, don't you know) leads to this social behaviour.
* Other behaviors that are only found in this order include: their precise navigation skill and communication capacity. All bees, wasps and ants can return to their nest after travelling kilometres away and can tell the others where to go.
* The main difference between bees and wasps is: bees feed their larvae on honey, which is a mixture of pollen and nectar, whereas wasps feed their larvae on meat (mostly paralysed arthropods).


Bee Facts:

* There are more than 2000 different species of bee in the world, but only four of them produce honey.
* Bees cruise at about 15 mph but can hit speeds of up to 20 mph.
* They never sleep.
* When flying, a bee will beat its wings about 180 times per minute.
* The chemical that makes a bee sting itch is called mellitin.
* A bee sees 300 frames per second.
* According to fossil records, bees first appeared on earth about 150 million years ago.


Bumble Bees:

* Unlike honeybees, bumblebees only produce enough honey to feed their young.
* The drone (male) bumblebee doesn't have a sting.
* Despite their size, bumblebees are far less aggressive than honeybees and will usually never attack unless they feel threatened.
* Unlike a honeybee, if a bumblebee does use its sting, it won't die or lose it.


Honey Bees:

* Honeybees have hair on their eyes.
* A full pollen load weighs about 1/6th of the weight of a bee.
* A full load of nectar weighs about ½ the weight of a bee.
* The oldest known record of human interest in honeybees is a drawing on cave wall in eastern Spain, which is about 8,000-11,000 years old. It depicts a man climbing a ladder to collect honey from a nest. Similar drawings have also been found in caves in Zimbabwe and South Africa.
* Ancient records show that beekeeping originated about 6,000 years ago in both China and Egypt.
* Honey Bees have pollen baskets on their legs. They're called 'corbicula'.
* The average worker bee will fly approximately 500 miles before it wears out and dies.
* A Queen has to eat 80 times her own weight to produce 2,000 eggs per day.
* A bee will visit 50-100 flowers during one trip.
* Honey can range in colour from white to gold to dark brown. It's usually a stronger tasting honey when its colour is darker.
* A bee must tap 2 million flowers to make 1lb of honey and would have to fly 55,000 miles to get it.
* One bee will make 0.8g (1/10 of a teaspoon) of honey during its lifetime.
* Mead is made from fermented honey.
* Drambuie is also made from honey.



Wasp Facts:

* There are almost 300 species of wasps in the British Isles alone.
* Only the female wasp stings.
* Wasps, unlike bees, do not die after stinging.
* There are 3 groups of classification for wasps - parasitic, social and solitary.
* Only the Queen wasp survives the winter, by hibernating.
* The common wasp makes her nest from chewed and pulped wood, a bit like paper.
* Parasitic wasps do not build their own nest but use plants, caterpillars and other beasties to host their eggs
* Some parasitic wasps are bright green or blue.


Ants Facts:

* Ants don't sleep.
* When the queen ant dies, so does the entire colony, because no new workers are born.
* The study of ants is called Myrmecology.
* For every human in the world there are one million ants.
* The brain of an ant has about 250,000 brain cells. [There's about a hundred billion in a human brain. Collectively, a colony's hive mind can approach this.]
* An ant's sense of smell is just as good as a dog's is.
* Ants can lift, with their mouths, an object up to fifty times their body-weight and carry it over their heads.
* A leaf-cutter ant queen mates only once before establishing a new colony. She can then keep the sperm viable for up to 15 years and produce as many as 300 million offspring.
* Fire ants first entered the United States about 1918, near Mobile, Alabama and reached Mississippi around 1930.
* Unlike other ants, which bite and then spray acid on the wound, fire ants only bite to get a grip, then sting from the abdomen and inject toxic alkaloid venom called Solenopsin. The sensation is similar to being burned by fire. Thus, Fire Ant