Venomous (Stinging) Creatures - INSECTS

Honey Bees (Apis melliflora) are a fuzzy yellow and black. They only sting if you they are defending their home or themselves. Bees drink nectar and eat pollen from flowers. Nectar is sugar water, just like a soft drink. Be sure to cover your drink if bees are around. You don’t want to get stung in the mouth! If a bee stings a large creature, like a frog or a person, her stinger sticks in the victim’s skin, tearing her in half and killing her. The stinger keeps pumping venom into your skin, so get a grown-up to scrape it out.  Click here to find out more about the "Honey Bees".

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Yellow Jackets (Vespula sps.) build large nest in logs, stumps, and in the ground. Sometimes people accidentally step on the nest and get stung badly. When a yellow jacket stings you, it does not die. In fact, it may sting you many times, so stay away from them! They have black and yellow (or white) stripes and are not fuzzy like bees. They sometimes steal bits of food from picnics. Adult wasps drink nectar and feed insects to their babies.

Centipedes have flat, narrow bodies up to 4 inches long, with one pair of legs coming off of each segment. They can be red, orange, or brown with venomous claws beneath their head. They use these claws to poison the insects they eat. Most centipedes will try to run away instead of biting you. A millipede is NOT venomous. It eats plants and usually has 2 pairs of legs for each body segment.

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Resources:

Florida Cooperative Extension Service Pamphlets.

Foster, Steven and Caras, Roger. Peterson Field Guide to Venomous Animals and Poisonous Plants. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1994.

Frisch, Karl Von. The Dancing Bees. New York: Hartcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1953.

Heinrich, Bernd. Bumblebee Economics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979.

Milne, Lorus and Margery. National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects & Spiders. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.

Sanford, Dr. Malcolm T. Professor and Apiculturist, University of Florida, 1996.