Very often, when someone gets stung they say, “A bee stung me.”

More often than not it wasn’t a bee that stung them, but a different insect with a stinger.

There are several common species of insects with hot stingers on their rear ends including bees, hornets and wasps.

People who don’t know any better call all of them bees. But they are all different in terms of habits, temperament and needs.

Most appreciated are honey bees that serve mankind. They gather nectar from blossoms to make honey and pollen to eat.

While they are gathering, pollen sticks to the tiny hairs on their bodies. As they work, pollen rubs off, fertilizing the flower so it will grow fruits vegetables, nuts and seeds.

Farmers depend on bees to grow their crops. Without bees to fertilize crops there would be a lot of hunger.

African honey bees sting, but domestic bees are gentle and easily handled.

Wasps are easily recognized.

The center of the body (the waist) pinches way down between the thorax and rear. The whole insect is slimmer than either bees or hornets. They usually don’t sting unless they feel threatened.

There are three common wasps, all of them feed on other insects.

There is a shiny black wasp that flips its wings and two yellow-and-brown wasps.

A paper wasp, makes a paper nest in a protected spot. The other is a mud dauber that builds a mud nest and fills it with spiders for its young to feed on while they grow in the mud nest.

I won’t kill a bald-faced hornet.

They tend to their own business, killing and eating yellow jackets, flies and other nuisance bugs. I’ve been stung by them, yes, but it was always my fault because I hit their big paper nest with a rock.

They’re not belligerent like yellow jackets. Those are just plain mean and eat almost anything, meats and sweets preferred.

I’ve been stung for no reason except that I was nearby and eating something they wanted.