Bees, Wasps and Ants

Order Hymenoptera

Bees, wasp and ants are closely related. It is common to think that bees as sociable insects. However, there are many species of bees which are not sociable. Wasps look like bees, but are usually not highly sociable. Bees and wasps usually have stings¹. Bees and wasps have wings, although some might have lost their ability to fly. Ants are flightless except during the mating season.

Bees

Bees are important pollinators. By moving from flower to flower when collecting food, they inevitably bring pollen from one plant to another.

Bee ©Eddy Lee

Honey bees (Apis sp.) are well-known for the honey they 'produce'. Honey comes mainly from nectar that bees collect in their stomach. They also collect pollen using pouch in their legs. The hexagonal honey combs are actually made of wax produced from the bees' abdomens. When a bee stings a person, part of the abdomen is disgorged from the bee, due to the barbed sting. As such, each bee can only live to sting a person once.

Beeswax at Serangoon Reservoir ©Tan KH

Hort Park ©Melvin Dionio

Sentosa ©Sylvia Chua

There are 4 main species in Singapore: Giant Honey Bee (A. dorsata), Black Dwarf Honey Bee (A. andreniformis), Red Dwarf Honey Bee (A. florea) and Asian Honey Bee (A. cerana). The Giant Honey Bee is the largest of the honey bees and has yellow on the thorax and upper abdomen. The Asian Honey Bee is smaller with dark and yellow bands. The Dwarf Honey Bees are the smallest and has distinct black-and-pale bands. The upper abdomen is reddish in the Red Dwarf Honey Bee and black in the Black Dwarf Honey Bee. Giant Honey Bees build huge nests in trees, while Asian Honey Bees nest in crevices. Dwarf Honey Bees also nest in trees, but their nests are much smaller.

Black Dwarf Honey Bee (A. andreniformis) ©Eddy Lee

Red Dwarf Honey Bee nest (A. florea) ©Tan KH

Asian Honey Bee (A. cerana) ©Eddy Lee

Giant Honey Bee (A. dorsata) and the colony ©Eddy Lee

Carpenter Bees (Xylocopa sp.) are often mistaken as Bumble Bees. They differ from the latter, by having a shiny abdomen, rather than a hairy one. They are so called they mostly nest in woods. They are mainly solitary. There are 4 main species in Singapore: X. latipes, aestuans, flavonigrescens and caerulea. X. latipes is the largest Singapore bee. Both male and female are all black, except that the male has pale hairy front legs. X. aestuans and flavonigrescens are similar². Female has yellow thorax, while male is yellow throughout. Female X. aestuans has yellow hair in-between thorax and abdomen, has white cheek, and purple wings, while female X. flavonigrescens has yellow hair on front abdomen, lacks white cheeks, and has green wings. Male X. aestuans has more uniformly yellow with greenish eyes, while male X. flavonigrescens is dark below with dark eyes. X. caerulea has a blue thorax. Male has more blue on the head.

Female X. aestuans at Punggol Waterway Park ©Tan KH and Chestnut Ave ©Eddy Lee

Female X. latipes at Hort Park ©Melvin Dionio and ©Tan GC


Male X. latipes at Jurong Lake. Female X. latipes at Tampines Eco Green ©Lau SY

Stingless Bees are social bees that also make honey. They nest in crevices and are so called because their stings are so reduced that they cannot do damage to human.

Stingless Bee hive (Tetrigona apicalis) at Hindhede Nature Park ©Tan KH. Stingless Bee ©Eddy Lee

Blue-banded Bees (Amegilla sp.) have blue bands on they abdomen.

Chestnut Ave ©Eddy Lee

Cuckoo Bees (Thyreus sp.) parasitizes other bees.

Kranji Trail ©Eddy Lee

Sweat Bees (Nomia sp.) are small (about 1 cm long) and so called because they are said to be attracted to human sweat.

Sweat Bees at Lower Peirce and Punggol Waterway Park ©Tan KH

Wasps

Wasps are often solitary, but there are social wasps too. The solitary ones are famous for parasitizing their preys and burying them with their eggs. These provide immediate food for the young when they hatch. Wasps are capable of multiple stings as their stings are generally un-barbed. Unable to produce wax, the nest-building wasps use mud or chew up wood palps to make their nests.

Chestnut Trail ©Eddy Lee

Rifle Range. Upper Peirce ©Eddy Lee

Family Crabronidae contains some predatory wasps, such as those of the genus Liris.

Liris subtesselatus paralyzing a cricket at Sungei Buloh presumably to lay egg in ©Tan KH

Bluish wasp at Republic Crescent on 25Feb19 ©Tan KH

Family Ampulicidae contains cockroach wasps.

Emerald cockroach wasp (Ampulex compressa) at Bukit Panjang ©Eddy Lee

Ensign Wasps (Family Evaniidae) are characterised by the short and thin metosoma that joins the posterior and the thorax. It is solitary and can sometimes be seen indoors, but they are harmless to human. They parasitise cockroach egg cases.

©Eddy Lee

Family Vespidae contains wasps such as paper wasp, as well as hornets. There are a few genera of Paper Wasps - Polistes, Ropalidia, etc. Amongst the Polistes found in Singapore are Banded Paper Wasp (P. sagittarius), P. tenebricosus, P. olivaceus, P. stigma.

Left: Polistes tenebricosus at Sungei Buloh ©Tan KH. Right: Ropalidia sp. at Chestnut Area ©Eddy Lee

Hornets (Vespa sp.) are an example of social wasps. Their stings can be deadly to human. There are only 3 species of hornets in Singapore³. The Greater Banded Hornet (Vespa tropica) usually nest on the ground, but some do nest in trees. It has an orange band on the abdomen. The Lesser Banded Hornet (Vespa affinis) has two orange bands on the abdomen, while Yellow-vented Hornet (Vespa analis) has an all black abdomen with an orange tip. The latter two both nest in trees. A nocturnal social wasp related to the hornets is Provespa anomala.

Lesser Banded Hornet. Left: eating a grasshopper ©Eddy Lee. Right: nest at Neo Tiew Lane 2 ©Tan KH

Greater Banded Hornet. Left: nesting in the ground, Upper Seletar ©Tan KH. Right: ©Eddy Lee

Ants

Ants are social insects that everyone is familiar with. They are flightless, unless during mating season.

Dismembering a fly at Sungei Buloh. Fighting at Chestnut Trail ©Eddy Lee


Upper Peirce ©Eddy Lee

Botanic Gardens ©Sylvia Chua. Weaver Ant (Oecophylla smaragdina) ©Tan KH

Weaver Ants (Oecophylla smaragdina) and nest at Punggol ©Tan KH

References

1. Asian Hymenopterans
2. Xylocopa aestuans (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Carpenter Bee
3. Singapore Hornets