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Glam Journal

What is the difference between bumble bees and honey bees?

Author

David Craig

Updated on March 07, 2026

What is the difference between bumble bees and honey bees?

Their appearance is different, as well. Bumblebees are round and fuzzy; honeybees are smaller and thinner – it would be easy, in fact, to mistake them for wasps. Bumblebees are social, too, but not to the same extent. Where honeybees build hives, bumblebees live in nests with up to a few hundred fellow bees.

Do bumble bees go into honey bee hives?

Do bumble bees live in hives? Bumble bees do not live in man-made hives the way honey bees do. Most bumble bee species live in an underground cavity. Usually these holes were dug, and later abandoned, by a mammal such as a mouse.

Where do bumble bees nest?

Bumble bees typically nest in pre-existing cavities on the landscape like rock piles, empty mouse burrows, and under layers of dense vegetation. Once she finds a place, the queen will construct a few waxen pots, fill them with nectar and pollen, and proceed to lay her eggs on top.

What are the different types of bees nest?

There are five different nesting styles among bees: ground nesters, wood and pith nesters, architects, cavity nesters, and renters.

What do honey bees look like?

Honey bees are usually oval-shaped creatures with golden-yellow colors and brown bands. Although the body color of honey bees varies between species and some honey bees have predominantly black bodies, almost all honey bees have varying dark-to-light striations.

How do you tell if a bee is a honey bee?

Identify the body shape of the insect. The easiest way to differentiate a honey bee from other types of bees or wasps is to look at the shape of their thorax and abdomen. Honey bees have a distinctive barrel-shaped body and don’t have a thin middle section between the thorax and abdomen like other insects.

Do bumble bees hurt honey bees?

Unlike the honey bee, a bumble bee’s stinger has no barbs. Because it is a smooth weapon, it can be used multiple times. This means that an angry bumble bee can potentially cause more harm than a honey bee because it is able to continue to sting.

How do I know if I have a honey bee nest?

Honey bee nests are easy to spot because they have the distinctive “honeycomb” structure in either white or yellow color. They won’t build nests hanging from tree branches, like other types of bees, because the nest and honey would be unprotected. Instead, look inside of hollow trees or manmade structures.

What does an Australian bee look like?

We have over 1,700 species of native bees in Australia. — Native bees can be furry or shiny, and they can be black, red, yellow or brown. Some are vivid metallic green and others are black with blue polka dots!

How can you tell the difference between an African bee and a honey bee?

Africanized “killer” bees look so much like domestic honey bees that the only way to tell the two apart is by measuring their bodies. Africanized bees are slightly smaller than their counterpart. They are golden yellow with darker bands of brown.

What do wild bees look like?

Most commonly, you will see a honey bee that has black stripes alternating with bands of amber to brown hairs. Still, some honey bees can look almost all black. Honey bees measure around one-half to three-fourths of an inch.

Do bumble bees have hair or fur?

Both bumble bees and honey bees have hair, but bumble bees are robustly hairy: scary hairy. The hairs cover most parts of the bee from the head to the tip of the abdomen. They look bundled up, ready for a weekend on the slopes. Bumble bees are hairy from top to bottom. The visible hairs on a honey bee are mostly at the front of the body.

What are the differences between honey bees and bumble bees?

The queen of a colony is only slightly larger, measuring at nearly three-quarters of an inch. Unlike bumble bees, honey bees have a narrow oval shape. They also have two sets of translucent wings, one of which is smaller than the other. The front half of these insects has a coat of fine hairs, while their back end has a glossier appearance.

What do bumble bees eat?

Like their relatives the honey bees, bumble bees feed on nectar and gather pollen to feed their young. July 2020, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Pokrent: A bumble bee collects pollen on a lavender plant.

What genus does a bumble bee belong to?

Bumble bees belong to the genus of real bees…. July 2020, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Pokrent: A bumble bee collects pollen in the flower of a hollyhock . Bumble bees belong to the genus of…