These “Bees” Were Not Bees, At All!

Recently, I saw dozens of bees surrounding the water in my bird bath. I assumed they were thirsty, and the shallow rim of the container made it easy for them to drink. Looking closely, I noticed that not all bees were the same size, and some were only half as long as others. I sent a photo of these little bees to iNaturalist. The identification came back: these were Mexican Honey Wasps! Not bees at all!

I recalled seeing my first Mexican Honey Wasp nest a few years ago. It looked like a hornets’ nest in an old Loony Toons cartoon:  a giant, gray, papery orb with a small hole on one side. The tiny “bees” were going in and out of the hole. The whole nest was close to three feet long and hung at arm’s length up in a small tree.

I talked my husband into coming with me to photograph this nest of Mexican Honey Wasps. I had read that these wasps are relatively mild-mannered as far as vespid wasps go. In general, you can get quite close to a nest if you do not harm it, the website said. (Somehow, I interpreted this comment as “they would not sting.”)

We got up close. I jostled a limb slightly. The wasps let out a soft hissing sound reminiscent of opening a soda can. I pulled a persimmon limb aside to get a better look. Again the hiss. They had warned me, and they had had enough. One of the wasps zapped me on the neck. It stung, of course, but I laughed it off. After all, I am a Texas Master Naturalist…and a big girl.  But the wasp’s sting kept on stinging and hurting for hours. The initial zap of pain revisited me every few minutes in waves.

I don’t know who came up with the idea to try to get a bit of the wasps’ honey for a taste. But yes, that is what we did. My husband poked the nest with a sharp stick. After we ran out of range (we thought), we tasted the tip of the twig. A distinct strongly-scented honey was evident. But those wasps didn’t want to share. One stung my husband on his head, and another one got me. It was time to leave.

With my newfound respect for Mexican Honey Wasps, I decided to learn more about these insects. Much information exists on the wasps’ value as pollinators, pest controllers, and honey producers. There was very little about their stinging ability except for a note that some Brazilian tribes used them as a rite of passage into manhood. (It figures.)

Mexican Honey Wasps (Brachygastra mellifica) are found in North and South America, but they have only moved into south Texas for the last 50 years. Like honeybees, they are social insects living together in a colony. Mexican Honey Wasps are among the few insect species besides bees to produce honey.

Early on, this honey-producing ability caught the attention of humans occupying the same area. Mexican Honey Wasp nests contain large stores of palatable honey. Native peoples harvest the honey by cutting off the bottom of the nest, leaving the base still attached to the tree. The wasps rebuild the nest, allowing for exploitation again next year. Some farmers become “vespiculturists” by taking the whole nests when small and relocating them to their gardens. Periodically, the wasp farmers oust the insects with smoke, chop open the nest to get the honey, and then allow the wasps to return and rebuild the colony.

In his Latin American Insects and Entomology (1993), Charles Hogue describes the nest-building process. The wasps build semi-concentric rings of combs that they suspend from a branch. They make the combs of “a relatively fragile paperlike material which they produce by chewing wood fibers and mixing them with salivary secretions.”  The outer surface of the nest is a baglike envelope of a much more robust version of “wasp paper.”  There is usually only a single entrance to the nest near the bottom of the bag. Newly founded nests reach “smallish football-size in about 30 to 40 days.”  Mature nests can be up to three feet long and contain as much as five pounds of honey.

Mexican Honey Wasps, like most wasps, are predators at least part of the time. Although they gather nectar and pollen from flowers, these wasps also prey on various insect pests. The psyllid Diaphorina citra is a very destructive pest in citrus groves. D. citra makes the fruit inedible and slowly destroys the citrus trees. This insect is common, especially in the late summer.  Mexican Honey Wasps feast on these psyllids and decimate their populations. This behavior makes the wasps a very effective biological control agent for citrus farmers.

Perhaps the most valuable contribution of the Mexican Honey Wasp is as a pollinator. Not only do they pollinate many native plants, but they are also highly beneficial in avocado and citrus orchards. Before the introduction of the honeybee to the Americas, stingless bees and wasps were the chief pollinators for the avocado tree. Mexican Honey Wasps are better at pollination than most insects because they have many pollen-catching hairs on their heads and unique thoracic cavities to hold pollen.

A mature colony of Mexican Honey Wasps can have anywhere from 3,000 to 20,000 individuals. A perennial nest usually lasts about three years before the colony moves on. During that time, the numerous queens produce thousands of worker wasps. These wasps are valuable pollinators, predators of pest species, and as honey-producers. However, I strongly urge you NOT to provoke them!

This essay is available as a Podcast at most places you get your podcasts. You may listen at iHeartRadio by clicking the PLAY button at the top of the left-hand column of any page here at RefectionsTexas.com.

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