Can you tell the difference between a bee and a wasp?
The top one is a honeybee. The bottom one is a wasp.
In this picture, both bee and wasp were collecting
sweet liquid from the plant.

Here are some of the differences:

Bees are furry.
Wasps are smooth.

Bees feed on flowers, sipping their nectar
and collecting their pollen.
Wasps are predators, feeding mostly on other
insects. They also sometimes sip on nectar
or sweet juices emitted by plants.
Both bees and wasps will visit discarded soda
cans and various picnic items.

Bees make nests out of a waxy honeycomb
that is arranged in a hexagonal pattern.
Wasps make nests also in a honeycomb pattern,
but the nest is made of paper, made from
wood they've collected mixed with saliva.
Some wasps make nests from mud.

A honeybee can sting a person only once, because
a barb at the end of its stinger keeps the
stinger in place. The bee will fly away,
leaving its stinger behind. The abandoned
stinger keeps pumping venom. Removing a
stinger should be done carefully, by scraping
it off -- not by grasping it with tweezers.
Grasping it with tweezers will just inject
more venom into the wound. Remove the stinger
as soon as possible. The longer you delay,
the more venom will be injected into the skin.
You can see a video of three ways to remove
a honeybee stinger here:
http://www.woodsmonkey.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=53:how-to-remove-a-bee-sting&catid=44:how-to-videos&Itemid=68
Wasps don't have barbs on the end of their
stingers, so can sting multiple times.



This image was originally used as an illustration for this post.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1010&message=10699839