Bees, Wasps, Ants

All images on this website have been taken in Leicestershire and Rutland by NatureSpot members. We welcome new contributions - just register and use the Submit Records form to post your photos. Click on any image below to visit the species page. The RED / AMBER / GREEN dots indicate how easy it is to identify the species - see our Identification Difficulty page for more information. A coloured rating followed by an exclamation mark denotes that different ID difficulties apply to either males and females or to the larvae - see the species page for more detail.

Bees, Wasps, Ants

Bees, wasps, ants and sawflies are all part of the insect order Hymenoptera.  A typical hymenopteran has 2 pairs of wings which are coupled together with tiny hooks.  Bees, wasps and ants are in the sub-Order Apocrita, with a definite waist between the thorax and abdomen. 

We have placed Sawflies in a separate gallery because they are in the sub-order Symphyta, and considered to be more primitive than other groups of the Hymenoptera. They are very different to bees, wasps and ants - one distinctive feature is that they don't have a waist. 

While everyone is familiar with the social bumblebees and honeybees, these represent only about 10% of all the British bee species. The remainder are solitary bees that don't work together as a single colony to rear their young. There is an even greater diversity of wasps. As with the bees, there are a few social wasps that everyone is familiar with, but these represent just a small fraction of all UK wasps. Sand-wasps, Digger-wasps, Mason wasps and Potter wasps and many other species all have solitary life cycles. Many wasps are parasitoids, attacking the immature stages of other insects and eventually killing their hosts. (A parasite lives within the host, but doesn't kill it).  Examples are Chalcids, Ichneumons and Braconids.  These are generally under-recorded species, and identification often requires the help of an expert in the group.

Ants are all social insects living in large colonies that work collaboratively.  Identification can be difficult, and several are under-recorded in our area.  Gavin Gamble has written some notes on Ant Recording and Identification to guide recorders. 

Many members of this group are difficult or impossible to identify from field images. Make sure that your images include the diagnostic features needed to make a definitive identification or get a recognised expert to confirm the identification.

Identification help

Specialist Facebook groups (recommended): 

Parasitoid and chalcid wasps - Chalcidoidea

Chalcid wasps (from the Latin, "chalcis" - metallic-coloured) are a very complex and species-rich group with constantly evolving taxonomy. In the UK, 1,754 recorded species were on the 2016 checklist, although this is certainly an underestimate of the total. All are endoparasitoids, the females laying eggs inside host eggs or larvae, which their larvae consume and kill. These tiny wasps often have a wide global distribution and in addition have been very widely used as biological pest control.

Eurytomidae - wasps

Eurytomidae are a diverse family of small, primarily non-metallic, black or dark-colored parasitic and phytophagous wasps. They are characterized by a coarse, pitted thorax. While many are parasites of larvae hidden within plant tissues (galls, seeds, stems), a significant number are phytophagous (feeding on plants), and some are specialized predators of spider eggs.

Ormyridae - parasitic wasps

The Ormyridae are either parasitoids or hyperparasitoids on gall-forming insects, primarily cynipid wasps and tephritid flies, typically metallic or iridescent in appearance.

Pteromalidae

This is a very large and diverse family of wasps (one of the most species-rich families) of rather uncertain taxonomy, having been included in other families and split off again a number of times. Their biology is very varies and includes ectoparasitoids and endoparasitoids, hyperparasitoids and even predators that kill and consume the prey immediately; they also include fig wasp genera. 

Torymidae

A diverse family of chalcid wasps that can be recognized by their metallic body color, large hind coxae and long ovipositor in females, which is used to deposit eggs onto or into their hosts. Torymidae specialize in parasitizing hosts in concealed habitats including gall-forming insects. This is an extremely difficult group to identify with over 100 UK species, the best chance is if they are reared or emerging from a particular host. 

Ruby-tailed or Cuckoo wasps - Chrysidoidea

Chrysidids are brightly coloured metallic parasitoids and cleptoparasites of other insects (mainly other wasps), from which they get the name Cuckoo wasps. Michael Archer's Key to the Chrysid Wasps (Chrysididae) of the British Isles and the Channel Islands on avaialbe from BWARS

Chrysididae - Ruby-tailed wasps