# Do any other bees except for honey bees swarm?



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Ants swarm, termites swarm. Probably any insect w/ a social structure like ants, termites, and honeybees swarm. Bumblebees probably don't. Their lifestyle is quite different.

All social insects maintain a colony in exposed comb, or protected comb, or in a cavity of some sort often called a hive or nest. The wording used by the person doing removals was to distinguish between honeybees which they apparently will deal with, and nonhoneybees which most people don't think about as not being honeybees. Any flying insect living in the wall of their house. He must not be an exterminator and wants people to know.


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

"Do any other bees except for honey bees swarm?"

No, but a vast majority of the public doesn't know the difference between a bee, hornet, wasp or fly.


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## Dominic (Jul 12, 2013)

Barry said:


> "Do any other bees except for honey bees swarm?"
> 
> No, but a vast majority of the public doesn't know the difference between a bee, hornet, wasp or fly.


Not to mention the definition of the word "bee" is quite elastic, and varies with who you are talking to.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Dominic said:


> Not to mention the definition of the word "bee" is quite elastic, and varies with who you are talking to.


Actually it isn't. Ask any entomologist what makes a honeybee a honeybee. A hymenopterous insect w/ plumous hairs covering its body.

Definitely not a wasp. Wasps have straight hairs. That's the entomological difference. What entomologists look at when deciding whether to place a hymenopterous insect in the bee or wasp category.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

sqkcrk said:


> Actually it isn't. Ask any entomologist what makes a honeybee a honeybee. A hymenopterous insect w/ plumous hairs covering its body.
> 
> Definitely not a wasp. Wasps have straight hairs. That's the entomological difference. What entomologists look at when deciding whether to place a hymenopterous insect in the bee or wasp category.


Ha ha, he said if varies with WHO you are talking to, not which entomologist LOL I thin he meant that many regular people in the Gen Population, refer to hornets, yellow jacks, wasps, and sometimes flying termites as " bees"


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## JoshW (Feb 5, 2013)

Barry said:


> "Do any other bees except for honey bees swarm?"
> 
> No, but a vast majority of the public doesn't know the difference between a bee, hornet, wasp or fly.


I recently took a trip down to Minneapolis, Minnesota. I visited the Cabelas store there and was very impressed with the mountain display. I was also impressed when I saw a sign that said black bear and honeybee nest. I look over and see next to the sign a blackbear climbing a tree to rob a wasp nest, I feel very sorry for that bear, at least he will know the difference.

The reason people do not know is because they are not educated differently, even a huge outdoors chain such as Cabelas does not depict honey bees correctly.


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