Question about bees verses wasps?

I have noticed I have few bee's in my garden and a ton of wasps flying around. I have a lot of flowering weeds on my property and the wasps are all over them. Do they kill bee's? Should I set up traps to try and control the wasps population? Certain vegetables are starting to bloom and i am concerned they wont be pollinated.

Thanks...
Michelle

Michelle,

Many crops are rather self pollinating like tomatoes and beans. Others like corn are wind pollinated. Others like lettuce, broccoli, and cabbbage don't need pollinating. And then others like vine crops can be partially pollinated by ants and other bugs. So I would guess that you will likely be ok.

Additionally many wasps are controllers of less desirable insects like the famed tomato Hornworm. They also prey on the larva of many other caterpilar types.

Thanks for the quick reply. I will leave them alone. I guess i am lucky there are near. I need to read up on more of what is self pollinated and what isnt. I have a bean plant that has attracted black ants and i have left them alone. And to my surprise I have 3 lizards that are living in my pepper plants. They have been there for about 2 weeks. Maybe they also get tasty bugs for dinner.

Thanks again. I love this site. Everyone is so nice.
Michelle

If it wasn't for the paper wasp I wouldn't have any broccoli. You should see them cruising around and grabbing those nasty green caterpillars off the plant.
Wasp are not friendly with bees but Nature balances things out.
Andy P

don't know about bees but I sure have seen them snatch a fly from mid air and have a snack. After that the wasps and I got along rather well. I will check my field guide for their diet.

I had a yellow jacket nest under a timber at the entrance of my garden this year and they were very tolerant of my comings and goings, even when a guest or I forgot their presence and stood directly in front of the hole.

Like Andy's experience, the wasps were in my broccoli beds this year and I assume they helped control the cabbage worms. My only regret is that up here, the nest's population is very low in the early part of the season and I could have used more help then.

I saw very few honey bees here this year, lots of bumble bees though, which is good because I don't believe yellow jackets are very reliable pollinators.

Unless they pose an actual threat to humans, I would just try to give them them the little space they need for the season. They die off in the fall and the new queen moves on to start a new nest elsewhere. On another forum site, I ran into some strong reaction against my live-and-let-live policy from the "only good wasp is a dead wasp" faction.

Wayne

Yep . wasps are good except when the build thier nest above entrance ways, They can get aggressive and thier sting quite painful. Other than that I leave them alone.

They have never gone "after" me, and hope they dont. I am going to leave them alone. If they eat "bad" bugs more power to them. They are always snooping around all my flowers and vegetables. They usally fly away when i walk around them. It's funny that i can walk near a wasp but if a beetle come my way i take off running. :)

I have found that regular wasps leave me alone except when I am too near their nest. Then they usually give me a flick on the ear warning!!

I used to have wasps living behind my vinyl house shutters, for many years. After a while the shutters became discolored so I tried to hose them out, no luck.
The summer before last I got stung while I was trimming my foundation bushes. It was my fault for getting too close.
Very early, last spring I took the shutters down to clean and re-paint only to find out that they were completely filled with old nests.
I used some 3/4 inch Styrofoam insulation that I cut to size to fill the voids after painting and have had no more wasps.
I was glad to see they must have found new homes and didn't abandon my broccoli.
Wayne, you are right, They show up a bit late in the season so I have to hand pick the cabbage worms for a few weeks in spring.
Andy P

I'm glad you have honey bees at all. The wild populations were decimated over the last few years by imported parasites and diseases, but seem to be slowly coming back. You'll hear from a lot of people who didn't get any squash or melons and it's probably because they didn't have many bees. Wasps aren't great pollinators and bumble bees are good but go from one flower to the next without regard to species. Honey bees tend to stick with one species at a time and get the right pollen to the flowers that need it.

I've heard of hornets raiding bee hives and wasps snatching an occasional bee, but like Sarahskeeper said, it balances out. I'd rather have wasps than not.

Early in the season I tend to do some hand pollinating on watermelons to ensure some early fruits. It seems that the honeybees are a little slow to show up early enough. I declare that ants probably do much of my early pollinating!!

Good work. Some honey bee colonies are more aggressive workers than others... it's like each colony has its own personality, depending on the queen. Some get out there and work when it's cool or wet, others stay home and sulk until the warm sun shines. If you have flowers waiting and don't see bees, you have to do the job yourself.

It seems many times in the spring that when it comes apple pollination time that I am wondering where the honeybees are.....maybe just one here and there it seems. Today it's too cold; tomorrow it's too windy; the next day it's rainy. Any way they get pollinated really well...even those early king blossoms.

The plums and cherries have oodles of very small insects pollinating them.

only time I have had trouble with bees is when they like to sun themselves on doorknobs and I forget to look before I grab

Ouch, roxroe!

One bit of advice I can offer is that, when lost in a corn field tasseling way over your head while looking for an elusive trail, it helps to be very lithe and young when stepping on a hornet's nest...which we ain't - grrr

In a more pragmatic vein, I agree with the live and let live policy above and all the comments about the many ways flowers get pollionated and interlinking denizens of ecosystems.

Found a bee link y'all might like: http://www.wuvie.net/bees.htm