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The insect order Hymenoptera includes the ants, bees, wasps, and sawflies.
Based on Stork's (1988) sampling of canopy trees in Borneo, tropical Hymenoptera, excluding ants,
rival beetles as the most speciose insect order. In most faunas , they constitute about 20% of insect species.
About 80% of Hymenoptera species are parasitoids, developing in or on a single host or single egg mass.
The parasitic Hymenoptera are important in terms of species richness, ecological impact, and economic importance
(LaSalle & Gauld, 1991; Gauld & Bolton, 1988; Waage & Greathead, 1986). Of an estimated 2.6 to 30 million insect species,
LaSalle & Gauld (1991) estimate that there are between 170,000 and 6 million parasitic Hymenoptera,
of which only 50,000 are described. They attack a wide range of hosts.
Parasitic Hymenoptera are often a dominant factor regulating arthropod populations,
and hence, significant components of most ecosystems.
Some control economic pests and have been used successfully in biological control programs (Greathead, 1986).
Diet breadth ranges from specialists attacking only one species to generalists attacking a broad range of hosts.
Relatively little is known about the community structure, geographic range, environmental requirements,
host specificity, and behavior of most species, particularly of tropical ones.
Order - HYMENOPTERA
(Greek,
hymen
= membrane;
pteron
= wing)
Common Names:
sawflies, wasps, bees, ants
Distribution:
Cosmopolitan
Suborders:
Symphyta and Apocrita
Description
Most Hymenoptera are easily recognised as belonging to the order because of their "wasp waists". The constricted waist (actually a constriction in the front part of the abdomen) characterizes ants, wasps, parasitic and bees in the suborder Apocrita. They vary from minute parasitoids of other insect eggs up to huge wasps and bees, but all have the wasp waist. There is one other suborder of Hymenoptera, the Symphyta, in which the wasp waist is absent. Symphyta, including the sawflies and wood wasps shown here are generally shining, hard bodied insects with transparent wings.
Order - HYMENOPTERA
(Greek,
hymen
= membrane;
pteron
= wing)
Common Names:
sawflies, wasps, bees, ants
Distribution:
Cosmopolitan
Suborders:
Symphyta and Apocrita
Description
This order contains at least 100,000 species in two suborders; Symphyta (wood wasps and sawflies), and Apocrita (wasps, bees and ants). All members have compound eyes and simple eyes (ocelli) may be present. Chewing mandibles are always present and may be used for sucking and chewing or holding and killing prey. Antennae are long, prominent and usually composed of short, straight segments (filiform). Typically, hymenopterans are "narrow
waiste
d": the abdomen is attached to the thorax by a strongly constricted segment. If wings are present, both pairs are finely veined and the fore and rear wings of each side are attached along their adjacent edges by a row of hooks (hamuli) to form a single flying surface. All members have an ovipositor (a tube allowing the female to deposit eggs) but in the bees, wasps and ants this is frequently modified to form a venom apparatus (sting). Adults may feed on nectar, pollen and honeydew but specialised species may use seeds, fungi, etc.
Larva
The hymenopteran life cycle involves metamorphosis of egg-larva-pupa-adult. Insects may be solitary or social, with community development reaching a peak in the ants and honey bees where only a single female (the queen) is sexually mature. Hymenopteran larvae are maggot-like and often use nectar and pollen as food. Many are carnivorous on other insects and may exhibit parasitism.
Members
All bees (social and solitary); ants, wasps, ichneumon flies or wasps, fig wasps, hornets, sawflies, wood wasps.
Food
Most bees are restricted to nectar, pollen and honeydews or sugary exudates from lerp insects, etc. These foods are consumed by larvae and adults with the exception that in the honey bee (
Apis mellifera
), the larvae are selectively fed bee secretions (royal jelly) in order to determine whether a female larva will become reproductively mature. Wasps and hornets usually utilise a variety of arthropods as food for their larvae including spiders, flies, cicadas, etc. The wingless females of the "Blue Ant" wasp (
Diamma bicolor
) burrow into the soil and hunt mole crickets in order to parasitise them. The minute chalcid wasps specialise in parasitising insect eggs. Sawfly larvae cluster on food trees and can defoliate the branches when large numbers are present.
Importance
The honey bee provides the honey and bee's wax of commerce which is worth millions of dollars annually. Of even greater value is the pollination of crops: fruits, seeds, timber, etc. and some contribution is made by the small Australian native bees (
Trigona
spp.). The wasps and allies are extremely important in natural control of insect pests and several species are already in wide use as biological control agents.
