Daily Mail

Busy bees & wily wasps

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QUESTION How do wasps differ from bees in the way they organise their activities?

Wasps and honey bees may be both members of the Hymenopter­a order of insects, but they differ greatly in how they organise their lives.

some wasps are social, while others are solitary. Most bees are social. Honey bee hives have population­s of more than 75,000, while wasps’ colonies tend to be between 3,000 and 6,000.

The nests of social wasps are built by the queen to the size of a walnut before sterile female workers (the queen’s daughters) take over constructi­on. Wasps make their nests out of a paper-like substance formed of chewed wood fibre and saliva.

Worker honey bees use beeswax — a substance they secrete from their abdomens — to build and maintain their hive.

Most wasps hibernate during the winter and build a new nest the following autumn. Honey bees do not hibernate, as they live on food reserves and heat accumulate­d by the thousands of workers.

Wasps, hornets and bees all construct cells in which they raise their young, with one larva per cell.

Honeybees build 100,000 cells in half a dozen combs. Those at the top are for honey storage, followed by pollen storage and then the brood cells containing the larvae. One hive will need 40lb of honey to survive the winter.

Wasps are carnivores and feed on flies, caterpilla­rs, spiders and bugs. They store little or no food in their nests. They chew their prey and feed the paste to their larvae. In turn, nutritiona­l syrup produced by larvae is consumed by adults.

Wasps and bees are capable of giving painful stings, but wasps are naturally more aggressive.

Honey bees can sting only once and will then die, while a single wasp is capable of stinging multiple times.

Ian Ball, Malvern, Worcs.

QUESTION Are there any Israeli Arab members of the Knesset?

THere are currently 17 arabs among the 120 members of the Israeli parliament or Knesset, the greatest number in its history.

Knesset means ‘ assembly’ in Hebrew, and recalls the anshei Knesset HaGedolah, or Men of the Great assembly, who convened in Jerusalem during the second Temple period, from 530 BC to 70 aD, to enforce the law, finalise the books of the Bible and devise the Jewish blessings and prayers.

Knesset members are elected by a rigid system of proportion­al representa­tion.

palestinia­n arabs sat in the state’s first parliament­ary assembly in 1949. Today’s arab representa­tives come from several different parties, but most work as a voting bloc called the Joint List.

Mrs E. Gold, London E12.

QUESTION Is it true that hundreds of soldiers were killed in a rehearsal for the D-Day landings?

THe rehearsal for the D-Day landings was codenamed exercise Tiger and resulted in nearly 800 deaths.

exercises were needed to get troops used to the chaos of war, and slapton sands in Devon was chosen.

The first days of the exercise focused on the logistics of an invasion and the first troops boarded their transport ships on april 26, 1944. To simulate the Channel crossing, they circled just off the english coast, getting into position for first light on april 27. The landing, set for 7.30am — H-Hour — was to be preceded by an artillery bombardmen­t.

Due to many ships being delayed, the commander of the exercise, U.s. admiral Don p. Moon, set back H-Hour to 8.30am. However, due to a communicat­ions breakdown, some of the landing craft approached the beach at the earlier time — putting them in the line of friendly fire. The death toll was 450 men caught up in the bombardmen­t.

Despite such a terrible start, the decision was made to continue the exercises as planned. On april 28, further tragedy struck when, at first light, Convoy T-4, which was carrying combat vehicles and the american 1st engineer special Brigade, came under fire from German e-Boats, which were fast attack craft.

HMs scimitar, a royal Navy patrol boat, had been assigned to protect the convoy, but had been replaced at the last minute by HMs saladin.

Differing radio frequencie­s at naval HQ meant no one knew about the changeover.

HMs saladin was late to get into position and this gap in protection was exploited by the Germans. Two tank landing ships were sunk and a further two damaged. By the time the convoy had forced the e-Boats to retreat, 749 personnel had been killed and another 200 were injured.

Many of the soldiers drowned as they had not been shown how to put on their lifejacket­s correctly, while others died of hypothermi­a as they waited to be rescued. The official number of casualties has never been released.

Due to the proximity to D-Day, there were no reports about exercise Tiger and survivors were sworn to secrecy, so the allied embarrassm­ent was covered up.

Neither the U. s. nor the British government­s showed much interest in rememberin­g the dead, but a memorial was finally establishe­d in 1984 after a long campaign by Ken small, a local man from slapton. He was also responsibl­e for the recovery of a sherman DD amphibious tank from the seabed, which is now on display at Torcross Beach to serve as a stark reminder of the loss of life off the shores of slapton sands.

Emilie Lamplough, Trowbridge, Wiltshire.

IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspond­ents, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London, W8 5TT; fax them to 01952 780111 or email them to charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspond­ence.

 ??  ?? Buzzing around: Bees live on honey while wasps (inset) feed on insects
Buzzing around: Bees live on honey while wasps (inset) feed on insects
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