Hymenopteran, (order Hymenoptera), any member of the third largest—and perhaps the most beneficial to humans—of all insect orders. More than 115,000 species have been described, including ants, bees, ichneumons, chalcids, sawflies, wasps, and lesser-known types. Except in the polar regions, they are abundant in most habitats, particularly in tropical and subtropical regions.
Collectively, the Hymenoptera are most important to humans as pollinators of wild and cultivated flowering plants, as parasites of destructive insects, and as makers of honey. The Hymenoptera are divided into two suborders: Symphyta (mainly sawflies and horntails) and Apocrita (wasps, ants, bees, and most parasitic forms).
The order includes the best known of the social insects—ants and some species of bees and wasps. Most species, however, are solitary in habit. Hymenopterans may be parasitic or nonparasitic, carnivorous, phytophagous, or omnivorous.
Hymenopterans are chiefly small to medium-sized insects, usually with four membranous wings and a narrow waist that sets off the abdomen from the thorax, or middle region of the body. The mouthparts may be either of the biting type or of the biting-sucking type. In the higher evolutionary forms—bees, for example—mouthparts are modified into a sucking apparatus, although many also retain biting mandibles. The ovipositor, or egg-laying organ in the female, is often very long and may be modified for piercing, sawing, or stinging. Metamorphosis is complete; i.e., the insect develops through four distinct stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Sex is usually determined by whether or not an egg is fertilized, with fertilized eggs developing into females and unfertilized ones becoming males.
Hymenoptera display an array of interesting behavioral characteristics, particularly in social species. The dancelike movements of honeybees communicate information from one individual to another about the location, distance, quantity, and quality of a particular food source. These movements were carefully studied and described by the German entomologist Karl von Frisch. Trophallaxis, or the mutual exchange of food between larvae and adults of bees, ants, and wasps, has been of special interest to hymenopterists. Hyperparasitism—the parasitic habit of one species upon another parasitic species—has also attracted attention. Polyembryony, the development of many individuals (as many as 1,000) from a single egg, is an unusual phenomenon occurring in some members of the families Chalcididae and Proctotrupidae. Parthenogenesis (production of young by females that are not fertilized by males) also occurs in some forms.
Certain ants are remarkable for their relationship with insects such as aphids and scales that provide honeydew or other sweet fluids. Ants that obtain sweet fluids from the caterpillars of certain species of blue butterflies (Lycaenidae) reciprocate by allowing the caterpillars to devour ant larvae. The honey ant (Myrmecocystus in the United States, Plagiolepis in Africa) has in the nest a division of worker ants known as repletes, which are fed sugary secretions. As a consequence of high food intake, the abdomens of repletes swell into globules up to 1 cm (about 0.4 inch) in diameter.
Hymenoptera, even those equipped with a sting, are sought as food by other animals. Skunks, badgers, field mice, shrews, and other animals attack bee nests for the insects as well as for the honey. The larvae of the wax month (Galleria mellonella) live in bee nests, where they eat beeswax, thus damaging the nest. The cuckoo bee (Anthophorinae), a close relative of the bumblebee, lays its eggs in bumblebee nests, where the larvae are cared for and nourished by bumblebee workers.
Size range and diversity of structure
Hymenopterans range in size from the smallest fairyflies (Mymaridae), which are about 0.21 mm (about 0.008 inch) in length, to the largest of the Pelecinidae, which may exceed 5 cm (about 2 inches) in length.
Principal differences in structure within the order include the presence or absence of wings that, when present, consist of two pairs; the presence or absence of a “waist”; modifications of the ovipositor; and adaptations of mouthparts for specific eating habits. Polymorphism, the occurrence of two or more forms of a species, is highly developed in some of the social Hymenoptera. A honeybee colony, for example, contains at least one queen, plus workers and drones, with each form being structurally and physiologically different from the others.
Distribution and abundance
Bees and wasps, as the most significant agents for the pollination of flowers, are found virtually everywhere that flowering plants occur. Social species may live in colonies of as many as 1,000,000 individuals. Ants are most numerous, both in numbers and in species, in tropical and subtropical regions. The number of ant species in arctic or Alpine regions is extremely small. The group appears to be absent over great areas north of the Arctic Circle.
The honeybee has been valued since pre-Christian times for its honey and beeswax. Beekeeping in modern times has become a lucrative and highly developed enterprise. Royal jelly, produced by honeybee workers, has enjoyed some popularity as a cosmetic, although its beneficial properties in this respect have not been satisfactorily demonstrated.
Certain parasitic forms are valuable control agents against insect pests. Notable among these are the parasitic wood wasps that attack wood-boring beetles; braconids that parasitize many Lepidoptera and wood-boring beetles; eulophids that parasitize scale insects; pteromalids that parasitize several crop pests; chalcids and trichogrammatids that parasitize a variety of orchard pests; and tiphiids that parasitize the Japanese beetle. Fig insects (Agaonidae) are valuable as the only pollinators of the Smyrna fig, an important crop in the Western United States.
Relatively few Hymenoptera species are serious economic pests. Chief among these, however, are the wheatstem sawfly (Cephidae); some seed chalcids that are also pests of wheat; the larch sawfly (Pristiphora erichsonii), which destroyed much of the larch forests in Britain and North America late in the 19th century; and the European spruce sawfly (Gilpinia), which was once a serious pest in North America. In order to control the European spruce sawfly, parasitic wasps were introduced from Europe.
The fire ant (Solenopsis saevissima), accidentally introduced into the United States from South America, feeds on young plants and seeds and is known to attack young mammals. The destructive habit of legionary ants, or army ants (Dorylinae), is of particular importance in South America. Armies of as many as 1,500,000 such insects destroy almost all animal life they encounter. Leaf-cutting ants (Atta) are serious pests, especially in Brazil, where they may ravage extensive plantings of cultivated plants overnight. These insects are used locally as a source of food by people in South America.
The ovary of the queen bee is composed of several hundred ovarioles, each of which contains about 60 eggs and so-called nutrition cells. The so-called spermatheca, a sperm reservoir that collects sperm from the male in the course of several matings, connects with the oviduct, through which eggs are carried to the outside. The sperm can remain alive and viable in the fluid medium of the spermatheca for several years.
When an egg passes down the oviduct, it may or may not be fertilized by emerging sperm, at the “discretion” of the female. Fertilization occurs if the female relaxes a muscular ring around the sperm duct, thus allowing the duct to open and sperm to pass through. Since unfertilized eggs result in males (haploid; n chromosomes) and fertilized eggs result in females (diploid; 2n chromosomes), the queen determines the sex of the offspring by relaxing or closing the muscular ring.
In addition to this facultative (haplo-diploid) sex determination, hymenopteran reproduction is often remarkable in other respects. An extreme and pronounced dimorphism often exists between the two sexes. Some male and female hymenopterans are so different in appearance that at one time they were thought to represent different species. The consequence of such extreme difference is that the two sexes, with markedly different ways of life, also have different tasks in the insect community. As a rule, only the female cares for the brood, and males live only long enough to mate. This dimorphism also involves the senses. Female bees, for instance, are sensitive to yellow, blue-green, blue, and ultraviolet light. The drones (males), however, are blind to yellow but are particularly sensitive to ultraviolet light. The yellow colour of many flowers is of no significance to the drones since they cannot feed themselves. Sunlight, however, which contains much ultraviolet light, is important in orienting the insect during the mating flight.
Parthenogenesis, which occurs in many insect orders, is particularly common in the Hymenoptera and can occur in three forms: arrhenotoky, thelytoky, and deuterotoky. In arrhenotoky, males are produced from unfertilized eggs laid by mated (impregnated) females or by so-called secondary, or supplementary, queens, which have not been impregnated. In thelytoky, which occurs in many species of the suborder Symphyta, unmated females produce males. In deuterotoky, unmated females of some Symphyta produce females as well as males. The occurrence of these forms is not always mutually exclusive. For example, in Apis, about 1 percent of the eggs laid by secondary queens may be female.
Parthenogenetic reproduction in Hymenoptera often occurs in a cycle of alternate generations. In chalcids, the first generation, consisting of males and females, produces a second generation of females, which lay unfertilized eggs that produce both males and females, thus repeating the first generation. In some gall wasps (Cynipidae) no males have yet been observed. The females of these wasps invariably produce thelytokous females.
The first generation of the braconid Microtonus brevicollis is parthenogenetic and parasitizes the adult form of the beetle Haltica amphelophaga. The second generation, however, lives in the larvae of the same beetle, and the females are impregnated by males. The occurrence of parthenogenesis is determined by a nutritional or hormonal factor in the larva of the host. The mode of reproduction is also determined by the number of chromosomes (i.e., cell structures that contain hereditary information) in the egg.
Polyembryony, the development of more than one individual from a single egg, occurs in numerous parasitic Hymenoptera, including chalcids, encyrtids, proctotrupoids, braconids, and dryinids. In this type of reproduction, the embryo divides into several separate, identical parts at an early stage. Each of these then develops into an individual insect. In Litomatix truncatellus, which is parasitic on the larvae of the noctuid moth Plusia gamma, about 1,000 embryos develop from one egg. The offspring from one egg are all male or all female, and, as a rule, several eggs are laid at one time so that both sexes will occur in one brood. It is believed that polyembryony is controlled by internal factors, either genetic or chemical, a view supported by the fact that in some species (Platygasteridae) only part of a brood may occur polyembryonically.
The solitary wasps, of which there are about 20,000 species, usually build nests or cells, which they provision with permanently paralyzed insects or spiders. One egg is laid in each cell, and the body of the paralyzed host provides all the nutriment needed by the developing larva. Some solitary wasps nest in woody or pithy stems, whereas others dig tunnels in the soil. The mason, or potter, wasps construct nests of mud, which are sometimes vaselike or juglike and may be found attached to twigs or other objects.
Sawflies, which are phytophagous, lay their eggs in incisions in plants, cut by the sawlike blades of the ovipositor. Species of several genera, notably Pontania, induce the growth of galls on willows.
The spider wasps (Pompilidae) usually construct single cells in the ground, in rotten wood, or in rock crevices and provision them with paralyzed spiders. The threadwaisted wasps (Sphecidae) have diverse nesting habits. Most of them nest in the ground and use leafhoppers, treehoppers, cicadas, stinkbugs, bees, winged ants, beetles, or caterpillars as food for the young, each species or group confining itself to one type of prey. Mud daubers (Sceliphron, Chalybion) build small nests of mud, often in attics, outbuildings, or eaves, and provision them with the bodies of paralyzed spiders.
The females of the superfamily Ichneumonoidea deposit their eggs in or on the larvae or pupae (rarely eggs or adults) of the host species. The legless, maggotlike larvae that hatch from these eggs feed on the body fats and fluids of the host until fully grown. At this time, the larvae usually spin silken cocoons, within which they pupate and from which the adult parasites eventually emerge. Those species parasitizing exposed hosts usually develop as internal parasites, whereas those attacking hosts concealed in wood burrows, plant stems, cocoons, or leaf mines feed externally. In the case of internal parasites, the hosts feed and behave normally until shortly before the parasitic larvae have completed their development. The hosts of the external feeders are paralyzed by the female parasites. In most cases, one parasitic larva completes its development within or upon its host, although in some species, many larvae develop in one host. Adults of ichneumon wasps feed principally on honeydew secreted by aphids and related insects or on host juices that exude from punctures made by the ovipositor.
Most cuckoo wasps (Chrysididae) lay their eggs in the nests of solitary wasps or bees. Among the exceptions is an African species that is parasitic on the tsetse fly. Tiphiidae and Scoliidae are mostly parasites of beetle grubs that live in the soil. The female wasp digs into the soil to locate the grub, stings and paralyzes it, and deposits an egg on it. The wasp larva lives on the outside of the grub.
Most species of the superfamily Apoidea are solitary bees, with each female making her own nest (usually a burrow in the ground) and provisioning it. Among such bees there are no castes (worker, queen). The female bee constructs cells—each of which is an enclosed space provided with a supply of pollen and honey—lays an egg in each cell, then closes it, and goes on to build and provision another.
Most solitary bees are short-lived as adults. Some species may be in flight only a few weeks, having spent the rest of the year in their cells as eggs, larvae, pupae, and young adults. Other species have several generations yearly, so that adults may be found more or less continually. In temperate climates, solitary bees usually pass the winter in their cells, either as mature larvae (prepupae) or as young adults.
Several families of bees have evolved species that are called parasitic because they lay their eggs in cells of various bee species. The young larva, which usually has a large head and large jaws, destroys the egg or young larva of the host, then eats the provisions of the host. Such bees not only lack the scopa (i.e., pollen-collecting apparatus) and other structures associated with collecting and carrying pollen but also lack the various structures of the jaws and legs that other species use for making nests.
In several families of Hymenoptera the larvae are completely dependent upon the continuous care of the adults. The colony is a family community of which every insect is an integral unit. Apart from the community, any one individual cannot properly function or survive. The essential work in the society—such as nest building, feeding and tending the brood, and defense of the nest—is performed by female workers. The fertile female, the queen, performs only one task: egg laying. The workers can be differentiated morphologically and physiologically as soldiers, outside workers, inside workers, and nest builders. The males play no part in everyday nest activities. They live only for a short time at a specific time of year, occur in limited numbers, and are virtual parasites of the colony that must feed them.
The activities of certain solitary bees of the subfamily Halictinae are helpful in understanding certain aspects of the evolution of the highly organized hymenopteran societies. The females of Halictus quadricinctus survive the hatching of their own offspring. Mother and daughter stay together in the same nest, which consists of single brood cells. Thus, although each female takes care of her own cells, they build and defend the nest together. In Augochloropsis sparsalis there is a further development in that females of one nest stay together for one summer, and a division of labour occurs. Some of the young females return, still unmated, from the nuptial flight. These individuals then take charge of gathering pollen and nectar and further building of the nest and are called worker bees. The mated females merely deposit eggs.
The social behaviour of Halictus (Evylaeus) malachurus has advanced another step. Morphological differences are apparent between the ovipositing female and the assisting females. The latter are poorly fed as larvae and, as a result, are smaller with poorly developed sexual organs. Bumblebee colonies are often highly developed, with different castes clearly established. Social companionship and division of labour become “obligatory” and, although a mated queen can build a nest independently and raise the first worker bees herself, she needs the assistance of workers to help rear sexually mature bees.
Similar preliminary stages to a social organization are found in the Vespidae. The female Stenogaster depressigaster passes several generations in the communal nest, and the daughters build their own cells and care for their own offspring. In the case of Belenogaster, however, whose nests include about 60 cells, the females not only feed their own brood but also indiscriminately feed all larvae present. Trophallaxis, or exchange of food between workers and larvae, is a further development.
The first evolutionary step toward a division of labour occurs in Polybia. Some female Polybia only lay eggs. In others, called assisting females, the gonads are poorly developed; these females take charge of repair and construction, larvae care, and food gathering. They thus are useful in the society, even though they produce no offspring. This society lasts at least one summer and possibly as long as several years before it dissolves, and young sexually mature insects establish a new nest in spring.
The life of the honeybee colony is potentially endless. Because the queen’s honey-collecting apparatus and her pharyngeal glands and wax glands are degenerated, she is incapable of building a nest or feeding and tending the brood. The continued survival of the colony results from the fact that young queens replace the old and that queens mate with many males (a practice called polyandry) to promote genetic diversity within the colony. After their nuptial flight young queens return to the home nest. If, during the spring, many offspring develop, the colony population greatly increases, and the number of cells in the comb for developing young is no longer adequate. The colony then divides by swarming, during which the old queen leaves the nest with about half of the worker bees, and the old nest is relinquished to a newly hatched queen. The swarm finds a new nesting place and builds new combs. To make the task easier, all the departing workers consume honey before leaving the old nest.
For nest building, the Polistinae (paper wasps) and Vespinae (e.g., yellow jackets) use paperlike coverings, which they construct by gnawing wood particles from structures such as fences, telephone poles, and barn doors. This is then kneaded together with saliva to form a little ball. After returning to the nest, insects roll the balls into layers of paper-thin cell walls. Vespinae also build the outer nest covering in several layers to help modulate the interior temperature, the air between the layers of paper serving as insulation. Interior warmth is produced by the body heat of the larvae and by the constant contraction of the muscles of the adults. This agitation, like human shivering, generates heat and raises the temperature of the hive. If the nest becomes overheated, drops of water are carried in. Temperature regulation of the nest is so precise that on warm days a constant temperature of 35 °C (95 °F) can be maintained. An equally precise temperature regulation occurs in the hive of the honeybee.
All ant species are social in habit. The virgin queen ant, who is usually winged, mates in flight with only one male. During the flight he transfers to her seminal receptacle all the sperm she will require for the rest of her life, which may be as long as 15 years. Each fertilized queen is immediately capable of establishing or taking over a nest. After the mating flight has ended, she first seeks a place to raise her brood. Her wings then drop off, and the bulky wing muscles degenerate, providing nutritive materials from the breakdown of the muscle tissue.
As soon as the wings have fallen the ovaries become functional, and egg laying begins. In primitive species the queen leaves the nest and forages for food for the larvae. In more advanced forms, the queen rarely leaves the nest. She feeds so-called nutrition eggs or other food stores within her own body to the first brood. The larvae that survive in the nest develop into dwarf workers, which forage outside the nest for food to nourish additional larvae.
A few ant species (e.g., Atta) have developed colonies that live for long periods, with one queen succeeding another. In Eciton the young queens, which are wingless, mate in the nest and are dependent upon the help of the workers as the nest is being built.
The degree of social organization in a Hymenoptera colony is most evident in the division of labour. In honeybee colonies the division of labour is achieved in an especially interesting manner. Tasks are assigned according to age. The first day after the bee’s emergence as an adult, female workers carry out wastes, clean the cells, and line them with a disinfectant secretion preparatory to deposition of the egg by the queen. On about the fourth day this young bee advances to brood nursing, where she provides older larvae with honey and pollen. On the sixth day she also provides young, newly hatched larvae with specific larval food from her pharyngeal glands. At about 16 days the bee becomes active in secreting wax and using it to build the comb. Soon afterward, she makes her first orientation flight outside the hive. On about the 20th day she begins serving as an entrance guard, shortly after which she becomes a forager. She remains at this job until her death. This activity sequence parallels certain physiological changes in the bee. The pharyngeal glands start to secrete larval food substances on the third or fourth day, and the wax glands become active on about the 10th day. By the time the bee moves to service outside the hive, both the pharyngeal and wax glands have degenerated.
In the division of labour among some ant forms highly specialized types of polymorphism have been developed. The Cryptocercus ants, for example, make nests in hollow stems of plants, then bore a circular entrance that remains under constant surveillance by special guards whose heads are modified into pluglike structures that fit the entrance. Each guard is relieved after several hours and another guard takes its place. Nest members who wish to enter indicate that they are members by means of a special movement of the antenna. Entrance guards are useless for other tasks. Repletes (see above General features) are a special worker caste of the honey ant. When food is plentiful, these workers are fed so much that the size of the abdomen is greatly increased. Unable to walk, they hang as living honey jugs from the ceiling of the nest, to be used as a food source when fresh food is scarce.
The very close relationship between insects that are social parasites of the Hymenoptera and their hosts is made possible by the host’s division of labour and by a special secretion produced by the parasite. The beetles Lomechusa and Atemeles (Staphylinidae) enter unmolested into the nests of ants, such as Formica and Myrmica. The beetle larvae are adopted, fed, and reared together with the ant brood. The adults and larvae of the beetle pacify their hosts by means of chemical secretions, which induce the ants to care for them.
The highly integrated activities of the Hymenoptera colony require sophisticated methods of passing information among its members. The so-called dance of the honeybee is perhaps the most remarkable demonstration of methods of communication in insects.
After a bee has discovered a new source of food, she returns fully loaded to the comb, delivers nectar and pollen, and notifies the other bees about the new food source before returning to the field. Information about the plant species is conveyed by the odour of the flower, which adheres to the bee’s body and is sensed by other bees through their antennae. She communicates information about the quality and location of the food source by means of various dancelike movements. Information about the quality and quantity of the food source is conveyed by the liveliness and duration of the dance movements of the bee. If the food source is unusually rich and of high quality, certain sounds are also made to convey this information. The location of the food source is indicated by the rhythm of the dance and by the orientation of the axis of the abdomen with respect to gravity. If the food source is near the hive, a “round” dance is performed. A “tail-wagging” dance indicates that the food source is more than 80 metres (260 feet) away. This dance transmits precise information about direction as well as distance. The number of dance cycles performed by the bee in a certain length of time is inversely related to the distance of the food source. Thus, about 10 cycles are performed every 15 seconds for a food source 100 metres (330 feet) away, but only one cycle is made in that period if the food source is 10,000 metres (33,000 feet) away. The bee measures the distance in terms of how much energy she expends in travelling to the food source. The sun and gravity are used in conveying directional information. During the flight to the food source the bee determines the angle between the line of flight and the sun. The angle to the vertical at which she then dances on the vertical face of the honeycomb describes the angle between the line of flight to the food source and a line drawn in the direction of the sun. An upward tail-wagging run means: “The flight is toward the sun,” whereas a downward run means: “The flight is away from the sun.” A run 45° to the left indicates that the source is 45° to the left of the sun. Because the position of the sun changes during the day, the dance angle must also change in the course of the day. If the sun is concealed behind clouds or behind some obstruction such as a mountain or a group of trees, the bee analyzes the pattern of polarized light coming from the sky. If only a small opening of sky appears between the clouds, it reveals to the bee’s eye a typical pattern that travels along with the sun. A particular intensity of polarized light is generated toward the earth’s surface from every point in the sky. The sun’s position is determined by virtue of the bee’s sensitivity to polarization differences.
The tail-wagging dance is also performed when a swarm is searching for a new nest location. When a swarm accompanies its queen from the hive, it gathers first in the immediate neighbourhood of the original hive. Scouts fly out in all directions looking for a suitable nesting place. When a suitable site is found, the scouts return to the cluster and announce the site by means of the dance, and the swarm then moves en masse.
As the principal insect pollinators of flowering plants, the Hymenoptera have played a vital ecological role ever since the two groups evolved. The mutual dependency of many species of bees and wasps and flowering plants is firmly established. Indeed, many plants cannot reproduce without the helpful intervention of a particular insect species, most often a hymenopteran.
Parasitism, which occurs among most families of Hymenoptera, is usually apparent to none but the interested student. However, the ecological significance of parasitism within the order might well overshadow that of pollination. Hymenoptera, the most prevalent and successful of insect parasites, exert a profound, if subtle, control over populations of other insects and certain other arthropods—groups that might otherwise overpopulate and thus upset their particular ecosystem. Humans have utilized this control mechanism to their own advantage by importing, breeding, and maintaining many species of Hymenoptera parasites that prey upon insect pests.