Field Guide

The honeybee is the major pollinator of many field crops and almost all tree fruits. It is the world's most beneficial insect. In 1985 it was named the official state insect of Missouri.

A strikingly large black wasp with smoky black wings that shine with blue iridescence, the great black wasp is often seen busily eating nectar and pollen from flowers in summertime.

Bald-faced hornets are fairly large social wasps. They are mostly black, with white or ivory markings on the face, thorax, and toward the tip of the abdomen. They make large, rounded, papery, gray nests, usually in trees and shrubs.

Paper wasps are the most familiar of Missouri's social wasps. A late summer nest bristling with dozens of wasps can be an impressive sight. If you have a garden, however, these wasps are your friends.

Many species and genera of sand wasps occur in Missouri. They nest in the ground during summer. They are found in many habitats but most often in open, sandy areas along rivers.

The eastern carpenter bee somewhat resembles a bumblebee but has a noticeably black, shiny abdomen. Carpenter bees are rather solitary and excavate their nests in wood.

Leafcutter bees are common throughout Missouri from late spring into early autumn. All are solitary. They are dark-colored with several whitish hair bands across the abdomen. One sign of their presence is the rounded holes they cut in the leaves of plants.

Ants are everywhere! They outnumber us a million to one. These colonial insects are familiar to everyone on Earth. Their lives are endlessly fascinating.