Bees and ants are collective insects. They are also sometimes called social insects. Social means living together in large families. Both ants and bees are members of the Hymenoptera. Still, what is the difference between ants and bees? Let’s take a closer look at ants vs bees
Ants
Ants live on every continent except the north and Antarctica. They build their homes in the ground. The part of the anthill that we can see on the ground can be up to one metre high. The invisible part underground can be much larger than the above-ground part. In this big city there are many passages through which ants run.
These insects form three castes:
– female winged;
– males winged;
– workers are wingless.
In some species of ants, the workers include “scouts”, “foragers”, “warriors”, “water carriers”, “nannies” and others: they behave differently depending on the task they perform.
There may be several female queens in an anthill. They lay eggs to increase the population of the nest. Workers are engaged in farming and even have their own pets – aphids, which produce sweet syrup for them. They protect and mop up their wards and encourage them to reproduce.
Aphids suck the sap of plants and process it into a sweet syrup. This syrup is what ants love. When the ant approaches the aphid, it tickles its abdomen with its tendrils, milks the aphid, and it immediately secretes a drop of syrup, licking it off, the ant hurries home with its burden, where it deposits it in the storeroom.
Ants are seemingly harmless insects, but they can be very harmful to bee families. They are enemies of bees because they attack a hive of bees and can take out up to a kilogram of honey in a day, in addition they eat bee bread, larvae and are able to destroy adult bees and in some cases the whole hive. Therefore, beekeepers use various methods to get rid of ants in the apiary.
Ants are of great benefit to the forest. They destroy harmful insects and caterpillars, spread seeds of plants and flowers, and help them reproduce. Ants are very hard-working creatures. They are of great benefit to the forest. In 12 hours, ants can bring 33,000 harmful caterpillars into their home. Therefore, where there are ant hills, the forest is healthy and clean.
Ants secrete a corrosive liquid called formic acid. Man uses this acid to treat some diseases. People in Mexico know how to get honey from ants called honey ants. These insects drink the sap of sweet oak trees. They store the sap in their abdomen. They use it to feed their larvae. It tastes like bee honey.
Bees
Domestic bees give us honey. They also live in bee colonies. A bee colony lives in a hive and consists of:
– the queen bee, who lays the eggs;
– the worker bees, who do all the work in the hive;
– the drones that fertilise queen.
Worker bees perform different functions in the hive. There are guards, scouts, nurturers, foragers.
The hives contain honeycombs divided into cells: bee cells, queen cells, and drone cells.
Bees work hard all summer to store honey for the winter. In winter they feed only on honey. The collected reserves are enough for them and for humans.
Bees have no interest in ants and cannot eat them or harm them in any way.
Bees pollinate plants, agricultural crops, contributing to the continuation of life on earth. They are also of great benefit to humans, producing the following substances: royal jelly, honey, bee bread, bee venom, wax, propolis.
It follows from the above: ants live in anthills built by them, they may have several females, except for the benefit can cause harm, they have pets; bees live in hives, their queen in the hive can be only one, provide humans with the most useful bee products.
