These Are The Insects In Your Neighborhood
Book Review: Bees, Wasps, and Ants, by Eric Grissell
I picked this book up because I wanted to know more about insects. Eric Grissell, a research entomologist, is a good source for such knowledge.
This particular book focuses on the order Hymenoptera, which consists (as the title suggests) of bees, wasps, and ants. Also sawflies. (If you want to know why bees and wasps are in the same order with ants and not, say, butterflies, read the book.)
Grissell is a little miffed that so much attention goes to bees and butterflies, while wasps, ants and sawflies suffer neglect (or receive only negative attention). Despite their low profile, these other creatures are an enormous and mostly beneficial presence in the garden ecology (for example, there are 106,000 species of predatory or parasitic wasps, but only 19,000 species of bees).
Not that the author ignores the downsides. His book includes the “Justin O. Schmidt Pain Index”, which ranks the relative pain of various insect bites and stings, ranging from 1.0 (sweat bee: “Light, ephemeral, almost fruity”) to 10.0 (bullet ant: “Pure, intense, brilliant pain”).
Bees, Wasps and Ants starts with some Hymenopteran basics and discusses their importance to people and gardens. Grissell makes the case that all of these species provide essential environmental services – not just pollination, but pest control and recycling as well:
… these basic services help the garden function as a natural system and reduce problems such as outbreaks of unwanted pests. If our gardens were stable, with all creatures and plants in balance, we wouldn’t know what a pest was because its numbers would be so low as to be completely overlooked … The best way of improving a garden’s stability is to increase its biological diversity.
There is some discussion of attracting a diversity of Hymenoptera. Grissell notes that there are lots of plant lists compiled for attracting bees, but “few compilers seem to think it important to attract parasitic or predatory wasps”. Fortunately, what attracts bees will generally attract wasps as well. As for ants and sawflies, Grissell says they will just show up: “An invitation is not required.”
The rest of the book is taken up with describing the lives of the Hymenoptera, divided into sections on sawflies (“The Garden’s Cows”), parasitic wasps (“The Garden’s Police”), Bees (“The Garden’s Pollinators”), ants (“The Garden’s Recyclers”), and predatory wasps (“The Garden’s Wolves”).
Regarding this part of the book, all I can say is that the vast multitude of ways in which tiny creatures devour each other is truly awe-inspiring in a grisly sort of way. To give just one example, there is a wasp that specializes in hunting trap-door spiders:
The wasp burrows into the soil near a trap-door spider nest, provoking the spider to exit its nest, at which point the wasp overtakes it, paralyzes it, then drags it back to its own nest. The spider’s castle becomes its coffin as the wasp lays an egg [the wasp offspring will eat the spider], exits, then seals the trap-door shut.
In sum, this is a book which will awaken your inner seventh grader, making you want to cry “Cool!” or “Gross!” over and over again. (I would add that, based on my experience, your spouse may not appreciate your reading choice passages aloud from this book at bedtime.) It is written in an engaging style, complete with an appealingly nerdy sense of humor.
And as for sex, I will only say that the sex life of the honeybee queen would bring a blush to the cheek of the Marquis de Sade.
If this book has a downside, it is that after the author spends a great deal of time describing the behavior of a particular group of insects, and may then spend a little too much time describing all the exceptions to the general rule. This can become hard to follow.
Overall, though, this book provides an entertaining and useful introduction to a vast portion of the insect world, most of which is too often ignored.
gardeninacity 
Jason, this book sounds right up my street, great review and lovely photos too. I wonder if it’s available over here, I shall look on Amazon. There are probably some species that are only native for you, but I imagine we must share a great deal.
I’m sure there is a large overlap in species. But also, this book is less a field guide and more a discussion of these general types of insects, so I don’t think the difference in species would be a big problem.
I ordered a second hand copy on Amazon this morning Jason after reading your review and now very much looking forward to reading it, I like a bit of humour mixed in with science and I am sure there will be lots of overlap too. Thanks for the recommendation.
Sounds like a great read – in my garden at the moment, I have been marvelling at the hoverflies and wasps which are keeping some control over a type of black aphid that only likes Japanese Maples leaves. They don’t do an especially good job at it (when compared to lady beetles) but given lady beetles only show up once the weather warms, they are a godsend!
According to this book, a surplus of pests will always draw predators eventually, though this may require more patience than some gardeners possess.
It sounds like a great book. I am always on the look out for a good insect book.I suppose your insects are different though. You have weird things like Japanese beetles and your butterflies are bigger and better than ours.
You don’t have Japanese Beetles? I thought they were a world-wide pestilence.
With frequency, I encounter yellow jackets (Vespula atropilosa?) pollinating and hunting among the flowers. Saw one under the maples coolly dismantling an earwig with great precision.
The yellow jackets have their beneficial aspects, though I find them to be one of the more aggressive pollinators around people.
Over the years I have taken photos and drawn about every insect, wasp, bee, ant etc that I have found in my garden. I watch and appreciate all that come to the garden. I have in 20 years here only been stung one time. This summer I saw a new wasp in my garden. I only saw it twice and am wondering what it is. Maybe this book would give me some insight. Also I saw a big wasp type go into a carpenter bee nest. I waited the longest time for it to come back out. It didn’t while I watched. I wonder who won that battle. Probably the wasp. Insects are so interesting to watch. Thanks for the heads up about this book.
I am very rarely stung, and when I am it is usually after doing something dumb, like stick my hand into a bunch of flowers covered with feeding bees and wasps. It’s too bad that so many of the neighbors are frightened even of the most harmless bees. As you say, they are so interesting if we just get over our discomfort.
Great review. I admit I might not read Bees, Wasps, and Ants but I know someone whose inner seventh grade is frequently open and who will find it fascinating.
Got to keep those seventh graders busy or you don’t know what they’ll do.
Sounds like quite an interesting book, and from your quotes it appears to be written with a good sense of humor. Please pass on to Judy that those are some stunning photos –especially that first one with the black wasp 🙂
Thanks – I’ll tell her (though no doubt she will have read your comment).
Sounds like an interesting read, thanks for sharing Jason. I always appreciated the wasp that laid eggs on the tomato horn worm that showed up every summer in the vegetable garden.
The alternative is to squish them by hand which is less appealing.
Much less. 😀
My granddaughter went from an ant stomper to an ant lover. She knows which ones bite and which don’t, and befriends the latter, letting them crawl into her hands. When she is older, I’m sure she would enjoy a book like this one.
I’ve seen wasps drag cabbage worms out of heads of cabbage. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I’m glad your granddaughter is no longer frightened by ants. So much better to be fascinated by them.
Oh that sounds so fascinating! It’s hard to find books that describe the various bees and wasps well – there are so many different kinds of them out there. I always wonder which types I’m seeing in the garden.
Me, too. I’d like to know more about the different species but I have my hands full trying to remember all the plants.
The photo of the bee on the bergamot is beautiful and engaging…and that is about as engaged as I want to become with this subject. I do appreciate the value to our gardens and welcome the little beasts in. Keeping track of plant names is sometimes a stretch for my poor brain. Adding all this insect info might cause an explosion.
I know exactly what you mean about brain limitations. It’s a challenge remembering the names of people, let alone insects.
A bald faced hornet showed me who was boss a couple of weeks ago and I felt the sting for a good two days.
That was because I was hammering on a board that covered their nest, so they were protecting it. I never have trouble with insects in the woods.
This does sound like a good book!
Any kind of hornet is going to motivate me to keep my distance!
It sounds like a good read–thanks for the review. As a bee/butterfly/moth lover, I do appreciate his promotion of sawflies, wasps and other pollinators. It’s all about balance, isn’t it? The photos are just beautiful, btw!
Thanks, Judy took all the pictures in our garden.
Cool book. I think reading it will remind everyone why it’s a good thing wasps are not larger, but I’m also interested to find out why sawflies are any good.
Love the pain scale. That’s the sign of a true bee/wasp enthusiast.
And the author has actually been stung or bitten by all those critters!
Yes, it’s a fascinating world at the level of the bees, wasps, ants, and other tiny creatures–as fascinating as our own. My inner seventh-grader is intrigued. Poor Judy, although I imagine she found the readings entertaining, as well.
Actually, she was not amused.
Yep! So many species and not just the introduced European Honey Bee
Honey bees are just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
How fascinating, but then insects always are, there are so many species…thank goodness they’re not bigger!
I have seen what the queen bumbles get up to! Yes…makes one blush!
We do give more credence to the prettier insects…but then I enjoyed the black wasp, how interesting! Nature is diverse and it’s all perfect, one link in the chain breaks, and the ramifications are felt far and wide!
I really enjoyed this, such an interesting post, and by the sounds of it, a really good read!
You are right, we need all the insects, even the creepy ones.
I know so little about insects–this sounds like an excellent book! I used to hate “bugs,” but I’ve come to appreciate their roles in the ecological system and find them fascinating. Nothing will ever make me like Japanese beetles or mosquitoes, though:)
I agree with you about the JBs and mosquitoes – there is no good reason for their existence. And even if there is, I don’t want to hear about it.