Bees and wasps, like ants, are attracted to sweet things such as fruit. Additionally, certain species such as mud daubers will even invade other hives in order to raid them of their honey reserves.
Solitary wasps are predators and scavengers that use their stingers to paralyze prey, often being long and thin with black and yellow stripes on them.
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Pollination
Wasps, like bees, serve as pollinators by carrying pollen from plant to plant on their wings. Furthermore, wasps serve as effective predators of pest insects and help manage agricultural insect pests.
Wasps may be carnivorous creatures, but their survival depends on consuming more than just meat. Their high metabolism requires constant supplies of sugar and water which they find through flower nectar or insect herbivores such as aphids.
At times, some solitary wasps have an extreme attraction to honey bees hives that they literally guard and devour the beehives where the honeybees reside. Not only that but some wasp species also prey upon other insects like hornets; carnivorous black bears hunt them down too! Solitary wasps boast smooth yet sparsely thorny stingers which can be pulled out without killing their victims, unlike bees which use barb-tipped barb-tipped barb-tipped barb-stingers which hook into victim skin paralyzing them while potentially killing them with multiple bites over time whereas wasps have smooth yet sparsely thorny stingers which can easily pulled out by victims who then pulls them out or bite them once.
Meat
Yellow jackets, hornets and umbrella wasps are well-known for their voracious appetites for meat. These species often consume dead animals or birds left lying about at picnics or leftover meals that have been left out to them; their mandibles then cut the pieces up into bite-sized chunks for consumption by chewing or licking.
Wasps may seem carnivorous at first glance, but as adults they tend to be vegetarian. Larval stages however are omnivorous – feeding both meat and plant matter to their young insects.
Some solitary wasps kill and chop up birds or rodents to feed their young, providing protein needed to mature into adult wasps. This somewhat barbaric practice allows wasps to access foods not readily accessible during foraging such as rotting meat or other animal remains that might otherwise not be accessible.
Fruits
Wasps may be notoriously disruptive at outdoor picnics, but they also play a critical role in our ecosystem. Each summer social wasps capture an estimated 14 million kilogrammes of insect prey to help balance our ecosystem by controlling pest numbers.
Wasps can often be found gathering around fruit and berry bushes. Their high sugar content attracts them for energy needs.
Although wasps may prefer fruits or sweet treats, they are actually omnivorous creatures whose larvae feast on both meat and insects during their developmental stage. Mud daubers will often capture spiders to use as food in their mud hives while cuckoo wasps hunt pest cockroaches as feed for their young.
Other Insects
As temperatures warm in spring, bee and wasp colonies expand rapidly, forcing their members to spend more time searching for high protein food sources that can support growing larvae.
Though both bees and wasps belong to the insect order Hymenoptera, there are distinct distinctions between them. Bees tend to feed on plants while wasps specialize in predatory behavior and waste disposal.
Wasps are attracted to sweets, fruit and sugary beverages as well as meats and carrion. Additionally, they hunt insects to feed their young.
While bees are social creatures, most wasps live alone without nests of their own to build. One notable exception is the familiar yellow jacket (Vespula vulgaris or Dolichovespula germanica). This species lives in colonies and can become aggressive as it defends food sources and territory – although often perceived as pests by many people, they play an essential role in controlling invasive species while pollinating native plants.
