Are Yellow Jackets the enemy of Honey Bees?

[CoolBees]

Sometimes - No, they are a friend.

Now - to anyone who has lost a hive to YJ's, yes they most certainly are the enemy.

But, over the course of the summer and into this fall, I witnessed a phenomenon that made them friends. I, like many of you, have to fight the YJ's every year, especially in the spring and fall, to catch the queens.

This year we had more YJ's than ever before. Billions of them ... (ok, that's exaggerating) ... 1,000's anyways. And I began to invent more ways to catch them. But I noticed 2 things: 1) I didn't seem to be able to make a dent in the YJ population & 2) (completely unrelated - I thought) I wasn't having the Ant problem that my bees fight every year. (I've lost more hives to Ants than any other single cause).

One afternoon I was sitting in the Apiary - and I observed an unlimited supply of YJ's hovering around the ground near the hives. And as I waited for the inevitable hive-entrance conflicts, they never happened. The YJ's were too busy to bother the hives. I got on my hands and knees, and watched closely ... they were targeting the Ants with a relentless force, hovering low and grabbing every Ant they found. It was quite a sight - and they've been doing it all summer.

In a normal year, if I fail to spray the hive stand legs with an Ant blocker every 2 months, I'll lose every hive in 3 weeks after the blocker wears off. I haven't sprayed once this year - since the spring.

Anyways - I took down my YJ traps and left them bee. Hive entrance conflicts are occurring now, as the firest fall rains have knocked the Ants down in population - as always happens. (These ants can't survive rains - only a few make it thru the winter, but by the next fall, they are everywhere again).

In short - nature is amazing, and I feel that we know so little.

[Ben Framed]

Coolbees
In short - nature is amazing, and I feel that we know so little.

That may very well be true. We have much to learn. As a close to nature man, you have picked up on some good stuff.. I for one thank you sir..  (keep the good stuff coming)

Phillip

[Acebird]

(These ants can't survive rains - only a few make it thru the winter, but by the next fall, they are everywhere again).

The darn ants survive hurricanes down here.
I never paid much attention to ants up north.  Didn't seem to bother the hives.  I wonder if that is the reason I lost my hive and why it was so pissy.

[rast]

Bull (carpenter) ants are the nemesis here, they can kill a hive. Thank goodness fire ants , being protein eaters, have not found larva to be a food source yet.

[The15thMember]

That's really neat, Alan.  It's true, we often underestimate or don't truly understand the ecological relationships between creatures. 

[TheHoneyPump]

I read somewhere awhile ago that the largest concentration of biomass on land on the planet is supposedly .. ants.
Ant levels around the beeyard is fairly easily controlled with granule type bait poison that they can take back to the satellite nests and ultimately the main mother nest.  It is not immediate.  Takes 2 - 3 weeks to effect. Then you are left wondering where all the ants went.
As for the wasps. They are opportunistic carnivores. Whatever is there and easy they will take. Eventually when other meats is depleted the easy pickings will become your beehives.
A predator of the wasp is the baldfaced hornet. (Big black and white). If you have a wasp problem and seeing the hornets, try to devise traps that leave the hornets unscathed.  Though, when wasps become scarce the hornets will be in the beehives.
It appears that the new giant hornet is eating mainly wasps and other hornets.  Good-bad?  Eventually when those are harder to find surely the gh will be onto beehives.
At the beehive:  ants are a problem, wasps are a problem, hornets are a problem .. which is most prominent in your beeyard is just a matter of which of those there are more of.
I have many dead wasp and bf hornets on piles on the ground out front the hives this year.  No ants round though, because they were baited and wiped out early in spring.
I suppose my ramblings are merely saying this is example of natures constant shifting of the balance between predator-prey populations.

[CoolBees]

@ HP ... I've been meaning to post what I watched this summer - regarding Honey bees, Yellow jackets, and Hornets. It's hard, for me to explain in a concise manner. (I was actually hoping to get photos next year and maybe some videos - to help with the explanation). It happened at my newest apiary which sets in a thick forest along the edge of a large river.

basically, I watched Hornets chowing down on YJ's, and occasionally also eating dead honey bees from around the hives - what was particularly interesting, is that I could watch the Hornets and YJ'S interact at the distance of a few inches away - for hours. It was as fine a slaughter as any military command could hope for. Those Hornets are amazing hunter/killers, and so much fun to watch ... hopefully next year I can post some videos.

@ 15th - yes. I feel that for all our human scientific arrogance, we know SO LITTLE! Nature and it's interactions are so poorly documented imho.

[NigelP]

As for the wasps. They are opportunistic carnivores. Whatever is there and easy they will take. Eventually when other meats is depleted the easy pickings will become your beehives.

Not quite true, adult wasps are sweet  nectar feeders.....although they appear to have carnivorous habits. The prey they catch  is for their larvae which digest them and then produce a sweet nectar that wasps feed on. They also get their sugars from flower nectar and honeydew produced by aphids same as bees (Wasps, by J.Philip Spradbery).
Yes they will, as well as other insects/larvae, kill bees for protein for their larvae. What usually happens is that after the larvae have all emerged and new wasp queens mated etc there are no larvae left in nest to produce any nectar for the adults.....and sugar/nectar  sources are getting few and far between...So wasps get desperate for nectar sources and beehives become magnets for them as a place with rich resources of nectar/honey. 
Big problem levery autumn here in the UK with many hives getting over run with wasps desperate for their sugar resources. Best solution is big hives with lots of bees that resist their attempts to invade them.

[The15thMember]

As for the wasps. They are opportunistic carnivores. Whatever is there and easy they will take. Eventually when other meats is depleted the easy pickings will become your beehives.

Not quite true, adult wasps are sweet  nectar feeders.....although they appear to have carnivorous habits. The prey they catch  is for their larvae which digest them and then produce a sweet nectar that wasps feed on. They also get their sugars from flower nectar and honeydew produced by aphids same as bees (Wasps, by J.Philip Spradbery).
Yes they will, as well as other insects/larvae, kill bees for protein for their larvae. What usually happens is that after the larvae have all emerged and new wasp queens mated etc there are no larvae left in nest to produce any nectar for the adults.....and sugar/nectar  sources are getting few and far between...So wasps get desperate for nectar sources and beehives become magnets for them as a place with rich resources of nectar/honey. 
Big problem levery autumn here in the UK with many hives getting over run with wasps desperate for their sugar resources. Best solution is big hives with lots of bees that resist their attempts to invade them.

I did not know that wasps feed on their own larvae's honeydew, that is incredible!  I really need to get a book on wasps, I've been wanting to learn more about them.  Too bad the one you referenced is mostly focused on the UK.  I'll have to see if I can find one for America. 

[CoolBees]

I did not know that wasps feed on their own larvae's honeydew, that is incredible!  I really need to get a book on wasps, I've been wanting to learn more about them.  Too bad the one you referenced is mostly focused on the UK.  I'll have to see if I can find one for America.

I think there is more to it than that. There are many types of "wasps", and each has its own unique ways.

As an example: I was at a friend's ranch over the summer. I noticed numerous Paper Wasp nests above my head on the underside of the veranda. I commented that I could help take them down. "No" he says, "they eat all the flies". He went on to say that he used to take them down, and used to have a fly problem. Then he read a study regarding this, and left them up for a year - no more flies. He's left them up ever since. Sure enough - not one fly bothered us thru the afternoon (very unusual for a California ranch in the summer).

This was news to me.

Also, there's a wasp out here that lays it's eggs in spiders. And ... well ... there's a lot of Wasp types ...

[NigelP]

Like many things in America you'll find many wasps and hornet's like Vespa crabro etc and were illicit immigrants from Europe. Most have same nutritional requirements and are sweet feeders.  One confusing aspect of their behaviour is observers seeing  (for example) a hornet picking over its recently killed bee. It's not actually eating it, it's removing all the non essential parts (like legs) to make it easier to fly the carcass back to it's nest for their larvae to feed on.

[NigelP]

I think there is more to it than that. There are many types of "wasps", and each has its own unique ways.

You are not wrong, there are many wasp econiches involving different survival tactics. There are wasps in  Mexico (Brachygastra mellifica) that produce honey. But the majority of the adults in most species are sweet feeders. Yellow jackets are typical of them.
A possibility for your lack of flies scenario is the wasps killed them as food for their offspring.

[BeeMaster2]

I did not know that wasps feed on their own larvae's honeydew, that is incredible!  I really need to get a book on wasps, I've been wanting to learn more about them.  Too bad the one you referenced is mostly focused on the UK.  I'll have to see if I can find one for America.

I think there is more to it than that. There are many types of "wasps", and each has its own unique ways.

As an example: I was at a friend's ranch over the summer. I noticed numerous Paper Wasp nests above my head on the underside of the veranda. I commented that I could help take them down. "No" he says, "they eat all the flies". He went on to say that he used to take them down, and used to have a fly problem. Then he read a study regarding this, and left them up for a year - no more flies. He's left them up ever since. Sure enough - not one fly bothered us thru the afternoon (very unusual for a California ranch in the summer).

This was news to me.

Also, there's a wasp out here that lays it's eggs in spiders. And ... well ... there's a lot of Wasp types ...

Allen,
Here in Baker County, we have a lot of mud Dobber wasps. They get their name from carrying around a dob of mud to make their nests with. Their are several different types, you can tell because the nest are shaped differently. When you take the nest apart, they are full of spiders that the Dobbers have stung, inserted an egg and put them in the nest. One good thing is that despite their size, they are not defensive of the nest and rarely ever sting people.
The biggest problem is that they love to make their nests on garage ceilings and inside of any closed object that has a small hole.
Jim Altmiller

[The15thMember]

I think there is more to it than that. There are many types of "wasps", and each has its own unique ways. 

Oh certainly, that's why I'm in the market for a book.  It turns out that, like bees, there are thousands of different wasps, most of which are solitary and docile, like the mud daubers Jim mentioned, which we also have here.  It's just like native bees, I never knew there was anything but paper wasps and yellow jackets until I started learning about pollinators. 

Last year I put up a mason bee can on my sisters' swingset so they could watch the bees while playing on the swings.  The bees didn't take to the can though, I think it was too shaded, but these tiny little potter wasps built several nests there instead.  They would sit in the tubes and peer out, and if you got too close they would scoot back into the straws so you couldn't see them anymore, like little wack-a-moles!  They were so cute.  I didn't get any nests from them this year for some reason.   

Two years ago I had the privilege of watching a great golden sand digger wasp dig out a nest.  I love these wasps, the females are solitary and and dig nests in the soil, and they are huge and strikingly beautiful. 

[CoolBees]

That is so cool 15th!!

... a hornet picking over its recently killed bee. It's not actually eating it, it's removing all the non essential parts (like legs) to make it easier to fly the carcass back to it's nest for their larvae to feed on.

It's interesting that you mentioned this Nigel. I know it's true. .. but I witnessed Hornets eating whole bees from head to toe this summer - both honey bees and yellow jackets were consumed. I'm not sure what exact type of hornet - the were very similar to the Bald Faced, but with less white on the face, just 2 stripes on the sides, and a longer narrower abdomen. Very elegant to watch up close. (Full disclosure - I haven't seen a Bald Faced since I was a kid in the north-east US - so I could be wrong. An Internet search didn't help.)

This is what I'd like to get videos of next summer. It's was highly entertaining (to me) to watch the Hornets snatch the YJ'S out of the air, tumble to a landing place, kill them, and then move to an eating perch and chow down. Then they'd "clean up" thoroughly. ...

Inside my bear-proof apiary cage - I watched the same hornets eating whole honey bees. They did remove the wings and legs on the honey bees. They then ate on the spot. ... didn't seem to have much impact on the attitude or qualities of my hives.

[NigelP]

Now that is some bear proofing.......non over here ,thank goodness, but we still have ratty bees.
Many hornets will scavenge and feed on anything they can find particularly late season. Some do masticate their prey and then regurgitate it back up for their young to feed on. But eusocial wasps are definitely nectar feeders.
But as in most things there are bound to be exceptions to the norm 

[Acebird]

I feel that for all our human scientific arrogance, we know SO LITTLE! Nature and it's interactions are so poorly documented imho.

I doubt it that is the case if you studied entomology.  There are people that know.

[Acebird]

Inside my bear-proof apiary cage -

Has it been tested?

[The15thMember]

Inside my bear-proof apiary cage -

Has it been tested?

I was going to ask this too.  That is a really neat idea, Alan.  I've never seen anything like that before for bear protection.

Now that is some bear proofing.......non over here ,thank goodness, but we still have ratty bees.
Many hornets will scavenge and feed on anything they can find particularly late season. Some do masticate their prey and then regurgitate it back up for their young to feed on. But eusocial wasps are definitely nectar feeders.
But as in most things there are bound to be exceptions to the norm 

Another interesting wasp fact that I didn't know! 

This reminds me of an episode of the Pollination podcast I was listening to last week.  There was a scientist on there who was doing research on bees in trees, like she was doing sampling in treetops and then dissecting to see what the bees were eating to discover how much of their diet was tree nectar/pollen.  She caught a bunch of males and decided to dissect them too and found that surprisingly they all had a significant amount of pollen in their guts, even though it's been thought that male bees eat very little or no pollen, since they don't need protein to make eggs.  Another example of how much we don't know.             

[CoolBees]

Inside my bear-proof apiary cage -

Has it been tested?

Yes. Here's one of the many that tried.

.... Some do masticate their prey and then regurgitate it back up for their young to feed on. ...:

Very interesting. Now I'm determined to video next year. The information exchange here is always excellent - a video might draw out far more details & knowledge.