Honey Bee

Honey bees get their common name from the sweet yellowish to brownish fluid they make from the nectar of flowers and use as food. Honey bees not only provide honey and wax, but as pollinators they are of far greater importance. They also are responsible for a large share of insect stings, although many stings blamed on "bees" actually are done by Yellowjackets. Honey bees are worldwide in distribution.

Recognition

Adult worker's body length is about 1/2-5/8 inch. Color usually orangeish brown to sometimes black with body mostly covered with branched, pale hairs, most dense on thorax. Eyes hairy. First segment of hind tarsus enlarged, flattened. In addition, hind tibiae lack apical spurs; front wing venation with marginal cell narrow, parallel-sided, and third submarginal cell oblique; hind wings with jugal lobe. Barbed stinger present

Queens slightly larger, about 5/8-3/4" long, pointed abdomen extends well beyond wing tips, with smooth stinger, males or drones robust, about 5/8 inch only, stinger absent.