Q. I was sitting outside when I got buzzed by a bee-like insect that I hadn’t seen before. It was bigger than most bees and smaller than a wasp. It had bright gold and black stripes. Could it have been a hornet? I don’t know what they look like.
A. We pulled out my A.favorite title on insects: “Texas Bug Book: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” We searched the index to find the illustrated entry on hornets. The photograph matched the insect this patron remembered.
Authors C. Malcolm Beck and John Howard Garrett included the information on this insect under Texas Yellowjacket, but another common name is hornet. The bald-faced hornet is a related insect. Adults are three-fourths inches long. For purposes of comparison, honeybees are threeeighths to five-eighths inches long.
