Head to head
Honeybee vs Asian Giant Hornet
Bees and hornets are both stinging insects in the order Hymenoptera, and both live in colonies with a queen and workers, but they make their living in opposite ways. A honeybee is a fuzzy vegetarian that gathers nectar and pollen and pollinates flowers. A hornet is a sleek, powerful predator that hunts other insects, including bees, to feed its young.
| Honeybee | Asian Giant Hornet | |
|---|---|---|
| Group | A bee (Apidae) | A wasp; the largest of the true hornets (Vespa) |
| Diet | Nectar and pollen; strictly vegetarian | Predatory; hunts insects, including bees, plus tree sap and fruit |
| Body | Rounded, hairy, amber-and-brown | Long, smooth, with a large orange or yellow head |
| Size | About 12–15 mm | Queen up to about 5 cm; the largest hornet |
| Nest | Wax combs in a cavity or hive; tens of thousands of bees | Papery nest in a cavity or underground; a few hundred |
| Sting | Barbed; the worker dies after stinging a mammal, fixed dose | Smooth; can sting many times, large venom dose |
| Aggression to people | Defensive near the hive | Low away from the nest; fierce in defence of it |
| Threat to bees | — | A few hornets can wipe out a whole hive |
Bee vs Hornet: common questions
What is the difference between a bee and a hornet?
The simplest split is diet and build. Bees are hairy, rounded, and feed themselves and their young on nectar and pollen, so they spend their time at flowers. Hornets are a kind of large wasp, longer, smoother-bodied, with a big head, and they are hunters that catch other insects to feed their grubs, so they patrol vegetation and are drawn to sugary drinks and meat at a picnic. A hornet's nest is made of chewed-wood paper; a honeybee's is made of wax.
Which sting hurts more?
A hornet's, especially a large one. A honeybee sting delivers a small, fixed amount of venom and then the barbed stinger pulls free, killing the bee. A hornet keeps its stinger, can sting repeatedly, and injects a much larger dose; the Asian giant hornet's sting is rated among the most painful of any insect and can cause serious local swelling and, with multiple stings, systemic effects. That said, a single sting from either is rarely dangerous unless the person is allergic.
Are hornets dangerous to honeybees?
Extremely. Several hornet species raid beehives to take bees and their brood as food, and the Asian giant hornet is the most destructive. A small group of these hornets can enter a slaughter phase in which they decapitate honeybees one after another, killing an entire colony of tens of thousands within hours, then occupy the hive and carry the larvae back to their own nest. Asian honeybees have evolved a defence, mobbing a hornet and cooking it in a ball of vibrating bees, but European honeybees have not.