Hover Flies vs. Sweat Bees

Many people confuse hover flies with sweat bees, but a hover fly cannot sting. It has no stinger!

A hover fly mimics stinging insect pests like wasps by having yellow and black coloration. Now why would that be? Hover flies have no defensive mechanisms, so they must depend on intimidation of other species including humans. 

Hover flies are all over Indiana during late July and August eating pollen from flowers and blooms in soybeans and tassels in cornfields. Also known as corn flies, the hover fly likes to swarm around humans using their sponging mouthparts to lap up sweat on our skin.

A hover fly has absolutely no part of its body that can hurt a human. 

As stated before, hover flies have been confused with sweat bees, but there are several differences.

• Sweat bees have four wings like bees and wasps while the hover fly only has two wings. The saying goes, “Two wings fun, four wings run” may help one identify the difference between stinging pests and flies.
• Although sweat bees are small, they can pack a punch with a sting. Remember that hover flies do not have a stinger.
• Sweat bees are dark in color with a metallic head and thorax while a hover fly is yellow and black. 

Hover flies do perform a very useful service for humanity. They are great pollinators and the larvae they produce eat aphids living on plants.

Admittedly these peaceful insects are certainly annoying, but they normally lose great numbers of their populations as August days go by.