17 Types of Insects That Sting: From Honey Bees to Stinging Caterpillars
October 25, 2026
Only female insects in the order Hymenoptera can sting, because the stinger itself is a modified egg-laying tube that males never develop. That single biological fact explains why male carpenter bees can buzz aggressively around a porch all summer without ever hurting anyone, while a single yellow jacket worker can sting the same person several times in a row.
Among the many different types of insects found across North America, only a relatively small group carries a true stinger, and this list of insects with stingers ranges from familiar backyard bees to solitary wasps most people never notice. Stinging insects are also easy to confuse with biting ones — mosquitoes and other blood-feeding insects pierce skin with mouthparts, not a stinger, which is a different defense mechanism entirely.
Below are 17 types of insects that sting in the United States, organized from the most familiar backyard species to specialized desert and southwestern natives.
| Insect | Family/Group | Typical Nest | Sting Behavior |
|---|---|---|---|
| Honey Bees | Apidae | Hive cavity | Stings once, then dies |
| Yellow Jackets | Vespidae | Ground/wall voids | Repeated, aggressive near food |
| Cicada Killers | Crabronidae | Ground burrows | Rarely stings people |
| Tarantula Hawk Wasps | Pompilidae | Ground burrows | Extremely painful, defensive only |
| Fire Ants | Formicidae | Soil mounds | Swarming, repeated stings |
| Velvet Ants | Mutillidae | Parasitic, no nest of own | Very painful, defensive only |
Pro Tip: If a sting site swells rapidly, spreads beyond a few inches, or is accompanied by trouble breathing, treat it as a medical emergency and seek care immediately rather than waiting to see if symptoms pass.
1. Honey bees
The honey bee (Apis mellifera) is the insect most people picture when they hear the word “sting,” and for good reason: it is the primary managed pollinator in the United States and lives in colonies that can number in the tens of thousands. A honey bee’s stinger is barbed, so it typically stays lodged in skin, tearing away from the bee’s body and killing the worker shortly after she stings.
Honey bees rarely sting while foraging on flowers; most stings happen when someone disturbs a hive or steps too close to its entrance. For a closer look at how this species compares with other bees that sting, the barbed stinger and single-use defense are what set true honey bees apart from most of their relatives.
2. Bumble bees
Bumble bees, in the genus Bombus, are the round, fuzzy bees that nest in small ground cavities, abandoned rodent burrows, or thick grass clumps rather than building large hives. Unlike honey bees, a bumble bee’s stinger is not barbed, which means an individual bumble bee can sting more than once if she feels threatened.
Despite that capability, bumble bees are generally docile and slow to sting, reserving defense for situations where their nest is directly disturbed. Colonies are also much smaller than honey bee hives, often topping out at a few hundred workers, which limits how many bees can respond to any single threat.
3. Carpenter bees
Carpenter bees, largely in the genus Xylocopa, are the large, solitary bees that drill perfectly round half-inch holes into unpainted wood eaves, decks, and fence posts. Homeowners dealing with these excavations are really dealing with one of many wood-boring insects, since the tunnels are used for nesting rather than feeding.
Male carpenter bees, easily identified by a white or yellow spot on the face, cannot sting at all and mostly just hover territorially near the nest entrance. Females can sting but almost never do unless handled directly, making carpenter bees far more of a structural nuisance than a stinging hazard.
4. Africanized honey bees
Africanized honey bees are hybrids that trace back to Apis mellifera scutellata, a subspecies imported to Brazil in the 1950s to boost tropical honey production before swarms escaped and interbred with existing European colonies. According to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the Africanized honey bee was identified in Texas in the 1990s and has since spread through the southwestern United States, a range that overlaps heavily with stinging insects found in Texas.
Despite the “killer bee” nickname, the venom itself is not more potent. Utah State University Extension notes that these bees are more aggressive and will defend the nest in greater numbers compared to domesticated honey bees, though their sting is not more painful or venomous. The real danger comes from colony size and defensive range, since a disturbed Africanized colony may pursue a person much farther than a European honey bee would.
Important Note: If swarmed by Africanized honey bees, running in a straight line toward shelter is safer than swatting, standing still, or jumping into water, since the bees will simply wait at the surface.
5. Paper wasps
Paper wasps, most commonly in the genus Polistes, build open, umbrella-shaped combs under eaves, mailboxes, and porch railings that expose the individual hexagonal cells to view. Their long legs and slender, elongated bodies sometimes lead people to mistake them for one of several insects that look like bees, even though wasps lack the dense body hair bees use to collect pollen.
Paper wasp colonies are much smaller than those of yellow jackets, typically housing a few dozen individuals, and the wasps are generally not aggressive unless the nest itself is bumped or sprayed with water. Most stings happen accidentally, when someone reaches into a mailbox or grabs a porch railing without noticing the nest first.
6. Yellow jackets
Yellow jackets, in the genus Vespula, are the short, stocky black-and-yellow wasps that become a persistent nuisance at late-summer barbecues and picnics across the country, including backyards covered in guides to insects found in New York. Colonies nest underground or inside wall voids and can grow to several thousand workers by early fall.
Unlike bees, yellow jackets can sting repeatedly, and they are drawn to the same proteins and sugars found in soda cans, meat scraps, and overripe fruit. This overlap between their food preferences and human cookouts is exactly why yellow jackets cause more late-summer stings than almost any other species on this list.
7. Bald-faced hornets
Despite the common name, the bald-faced hornet (Dolichovespula maculata) is technically a wasp closely related to yellow jackets, not a true hornet. It gets its name from the bold white markings on its face and the ends of its abdomen, set against an otherwise black body.
Bald-faced hornets build large, enclosed, football-shaped paper nests high in trees or under eaves, and colonies defend those nests aggressively if disturbed. Their range extends across much of the northern and eastern United States into the same temperate forests covered by guides to insects found in Canada, and multiple stings from a single nest are common when someone accidentally knocks a branch too close to the colony.
8. European hornets
The European hornet (Vespa crabro) is the only true hornet established in the United States, introduced from Europe in the 1800s and now found through much of the eastern half of the country, including regions detailed in guides to insects found in Ohio. It is noticeably larger than a yellow jacket, with a reddish-brown and yellow body pattern.
European hornets are unusual among stinging insects because they remain active after dark, often drawn to porch lights where they can startle people who aren’t expecting a wasp at night. They build enclosed nests in hollow trees or wall cavities and, while capable of a painful sting, tend to be less defensive around humans than yellow jackets.
9. Mud daubers
Mud daubers are solitary wasps, most often in the genus Sceliphron, recognized by their thin, thread-like waists and the mud tube nests they plaster onto walls, eaves, and bridges. Each female works alone, provisioning her mud cells with paralyzed spiders as food for her developing larvae rather than tending a shared colony.
Because they have no colony to protect, mud daubers are among the least aggressive stinging insects most people ever encounter. They will sting if physically grabbed or trapped, but they generally ignore people even when working directly on a nest just a few feet away.
10. Cicada killers
Cicada killers (Sphecius speciosus) are among the largest solitary wasps in North America, often startling homeowners with their size alone before they even notice the burrows dug into sandy or bare patches of lawn. Females hunt cicadas, paralyze them with a sting, and drag the prey underground to feed their larvae.
Male cicada killers patrol territory aggressively but cannot sting at all, while females are capable but almost never sting people unless handled directly. Large numbers of burrows in a lawn can look alarming, yet cicada killers are considered beneficial predators that pose very little real risk to people nearby.
11. Potter wasps
Potter wasps, a subfamily (Eumeninae) within the same family as paper wasps, build small, individual mud nests shaped almost exactly like tiny clay pots or jugs, often attached to twigs, fences, or house siding. Each nest is provisioned with paralyzed caterpillar or beetle larvae as food for a single developing wasp.
Like mud daubers, potter wasps are solitary and largely indifferent to humans, since there is no shared colony worth defending. Their stings are rarely reported, and most people never realize a potter wasp nest was nearby until they spot the distinctive miniature pot stuck to a wall.
12. Sand wasps
Sand wasps, in the tribe Bembicini, dig burrows in loose, sandy soil, often in beach dunes, sandy roadsides, or dry desert washes across the southwestern United States. Females hunt flies and other small insects, paralyzing them to provision the burrow before sealing it shut.
These wasps are fast, low fliers that can look intimidating as they dart just above the sand, but they are solitary and rarely sting unless physically caught. Their burrowing habits actually help aerate sandy soils, making sand wasps a largely beneficial, if unnerving, presence at the beach or in the desert.
13. Tarantula hawk wasps
Tarantula hawk wasps, in the genus Pepsis and the closely related Hemipepsis, are enormous, metallic blue-black wasps with bright orange wings that hunt tarantulas rather than fleeing from them. A female locates a tarantula, delivers a paralyzing sting, then drags the still-living spider into a burrow where a single egg is laid on its abdomen.
Their sting is legendary among entomologists studying pain: on the Schmidt sting pain index, Britannica notes that a tarantula hawk sting is rated a 4.0 out of 4 and described as leaving the sensation that “a running hair dryer has just been dropped in your bubble bath”. Despite that intensity, tarantula hawks are docile unless handled, and the species carries extra regional significance since Pepsis grossa is the state insect of New Mexico.
Key Insight: The most painful stings on this list, including the tarantula hawk, belong to solitary species that almost never attack unprovoked. Colony-defending insects like yellow jackets sting far more often, even though the individual sting hurts less.
14. Spider wasps
Spider wasps make up the broader family Pompilidae, of which tarantula hawks are simply the largest and most famous members. Most spider wasps, in genera such as Anoplius and Poecilopompilus, are much smaller, slender-bodied hunters that provision their nests with paralyzed spiders rather than the tarantulas targeted by their giant relatives.
Because Pompilidae wasps are entirely solitary hunters rather than colony defenders, a female stings a spider to paralyze it, then drags the prey to a burrow where a single egg is laid on the spider’s abdomen before the entrance is sealed. Smaller spider wasps deliver a noticeably milder sting than tarantula hawks and rarely bother people who leave their burrows undisturbed.
15. Fire ants
Red imported fire ants (Solenopsis invicta) are invasive ants, originally from South America, now established across much of the southern United States, where they build dome-shaped soil mounds in lawns, pastures, and roadsides. Unlike most stinging insects on this list, fire ants often bite to anchor themselves before stinging repeatedly in a circular pattern.
A disturbed mound can send dozens of workers swarming up a leg within seconds, and Schmidt’s sting pain index rates a single fire ant sting a comparatively mild 1.2, describing it as feeling “like walking across a shag carpet and reaching for the light switch”. The real risk with fire ants comes from sheer numbers rather than the potency of any one sting, since dozens or hundreds of simultaneous stings can overwhelm sensitive individuals.
16. Velvet ants
Velvet ants are not true ants at all but wingless female wasps in the family Mutillidae, covered in dense, brightly colored hair that gives them their name and their common nickname, “cow killer.” They wander alone across open ground searching for the underground nests of other bees and wasps, where they lay parasitic eggs.
Despite their small size, velvet ants deliver one of the most painful stings of any North American insect. Wikipedia’s summary of the Schmidt sting pain index places velvet ants at level 3, noting that Klug’s velvet ant, a wingless wasp and not a true ant, causes pain that can last up to half an hour. Fortunately, velvet ants are solitary, slow-moving, and sting only when picked up or stepped on directly.
17. Stinging caterpillars/moths (larval stage)
Not every insect sting comes from an adult with a stinger. Several caterpillars, the larval stage of certain moths, carry hollow, venom-filled spines or hairs called urticating setae that break off in skin on contact, causing a burning, itchy reaction similar to a nettle sting rather than a true venomous injection.
The southwestern United States hosts several notable examples of this metamorphosis stage in stinging species. Among native caterpillars in the southwestern US, the range caterpillar (Hemileuca oliviae) stands out as a caterpillar species found in New Mexico and neighboring rangeland states, where dense clusters of spiny larvae feed on native grasses and can cause painful skin reactions in livestock and people who brush against them. Desert caterpillar identification for this species relies on its banded black-and-orange coloring and the rows of branched spines running down its body, distinguishing it from non-stinging New Mexico butterfly caterpillars such as the state’s own Sandia hairstreak larvae.
Other well-known stinging species found across a wider range include the saddleback caterpillar (Acharia stimulea) and the southern flannel moth caterpillar, commonly called the puss caterpillar (Megalopyge opercularis), whose deceptively soft-looking fur hides some of the most painful urticating spines of any North American caterpillar. A few of these species are occasionally kept by hobbyists interested in raising native moths, joining the broader world of insects kept as pets, though handling stinging caterpillars always requires gloves.
Common Mistake: Brushing a stinging caterpillar off with a bare hand only presses more broken spines into the skin. Use a piece of tape to lift embedded hairs away, then wash the area with soap and water.
Identifying which of these 17 types of insects that sting you’re dealing with matters more for peace of mind than for treatment, since basic first aid — washing the site, applying a cold compress, and watching for signs of a severe allergic reaction — covers the vast majority of encounters. The insects capable of the most painful stings, tarantula hawks and velvet ants among them, are also the ones least likely to bother anyone who leaves their burrows and nests alone. Colony-defending species like yellow jackets and Africanized honey bees deserve more caution not because any single sting is unusually potent, but because disturbing their nests can bring dozens of defenders at once. Learning to recognize a paper wasp’s open comb, a mud dauber’s mud tube, or a range caterpillar’s banded spines is usually enough to avoid the vast majority of painful surprises in the yard, garden, or desert trail.