Yup! Was about to type out a similar reply.
To further clarify:
Hymenoptera - order of Insecta - ants, bees, wasps, hornets
Aculeata - infraorder of Hymenoptera - bees, wasps, hornets
Apidae - family of Aculeata - bees (also bumblebees)
Vespidae - family of Aculeata - wasps, hornets
Formicidae - family of Hymenoptera - ants
Except many non-Vespidae, both living and extinct, would readily be considered wasps. Look at this thing and tell me it’s not a wasp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eusapvertic.jpg
If that’s a wasp and a yellow-jacket is a wasp, then so are ants and bees, in the same way that we are apes and birds are dinosaurs. You wouldn’t call a zoo to deal with a loose human and you wouldn’t call dr. Grant to deal with a pigeon, but biologically it makes a lot more sense to deal with ancestry then with how a species interacts with humans.
You can’t argue “this looks like a wasp so it is a wasp” and then extend from that to “and because of evolutionary history, all these other things that don’t look like wasps are also wasps”
Defining groups of species with a common word is always going to be ambiguous, but you need to stay consistent in what you use to define it. By the same logic you can argue that humans are fish, because whales clearly are fish if you just look at them, and whales and humans are both mammals.
If that’s a wasp and a yellow-jacket is a wasp, then so are ants and bees,
That logic doesn’t check out, given Sapygidae is a family of sapygid wasps belonging to the Aculeata infraorder.
Aculeata is named after its defining feature, which is the modification of the ovipositor into a stinger. This trait doesn’t strictly constitute a wasp, which is why they have their own families (Vespidae, Sapygidae, Pompilidae, Myrmosidae, basically all of the Chrysidoidea superfamily, etc.).
All wasps are aculeate, but not all aculeates are wasps.
Most of the time: it’s more about the fact that bees are typically harmless, and calling a bee a wasp, to me, is like calling Starry, Pepsi, because they’re both made by PepsiCo.
And yes, honeybees are a protected species here, meaning we’d need an apiarist to either remove the hive and capture the swarm, or officially tell us that the hive is too large to safely remove, without destroying the home.
While Ants, Bees, Wasps and Hornets are all in the family Hymenoptera, it is incredibly wrong to suggest that Bees and Ants are Wasps.
They are distinct species that are related to each other.
Sincerely — a pest control technician who is incredibly tired of helping solve “bee” problems, when 99% of the time, they have a Wasp problem.
Yeah, because otherwise by the above logic, one could also say, “bees are humans (and so are eels)”, because they all belong to the Animalia kingdom.
Oh even better, “bees are Uranus (and so are sedimentary rocks)”, because all are nouns.
Yup! Was about to type out a similar reply. To further clarify:
Hymenoptera - order of Insecta - ants, bees, wasps, hornets
Aculeata - infraorder of Hymenoptera - bees, wasps, hornets
Apidae - family of Aculeata - bees (also bumblebees)
Vespidae - family of Aculeata - wasps, hornets Formicidae - family of Hymenoptera - ants
edit20260227: forgot ants belong to aculeata
Except many non-Vespidae, both living and extinct, would readily be considered wasps. Look at this thing and tell me it’s not a wasp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eusapvertic.jpg If that’s a wasp and a yellow-jacket is a wasp, then so are ants and bees, in the same way that we are apes and birds are dinosaurs. You wouldn’t call a zoo to deal with a loose human and you wouldn’t call dr. Grant to deal with a pigeon, but biologically it makes a lot more sense to deal with ancestry then with how a species interacts with humans.
You can’t argue “this looks like a wasp so it is a wasp” and then extend from that to “and because of evolutionary history, all these other things that don’t look like wasps are also wasps”
Defining groups of species with a common word is always going to be ambiguous, but you need to stay consistent in what you use to define it. By the same logic you can argue that humans are fish, because whales clearly are fish if you just look at them, and whales and humans are both mammals.
That logic doesn’t check out, given Sapygidae is a family of sapygid wasps belonging to the Aculeata infraorder.
Aculeata is named after its defining feature, which is the modification of the ovipositor into a stinger. This trait doesn’t strictly constitute a wasp, which is why they have their own families (Vespidae, Sapygidae, Pompilidae, Myrmosidae, basically all of the Chrysidoidea superfamily, etc.).
All wasps are aculeate, but not all aculeates are wasps.
Why does it matter if you’re called for a bee problem, but it’s wasps? And wouldn’t actual bee problems require a Bee Keeper?
Most of the time: it’s more about the fact that bees are typically harmless, and calling a bee a wasp, to me, is like calling Starry, Pepsi, because they’re both made by PepsiCo.
And yes, honeybees are a protected species here, meaning we’d need an apiarist to either remove the hive and capture the swarm, or officially tell us that the hive is too large to safely remove, without destroying the home.