Two wings means fly. Four means bee or wasp. If the wings move too fast to count, look at the head: a fly’s is a dome of “pancake eyes,” a wasp’s is shaped like a hammerhead shark with small eyes out at the ends. That is the five-second call a census volunteer makes on a flower.
Week Six of the Great Southeast Pollinator Course, with three presenters. Dr. Jason Schmidt (UGA Tifton) opens on insect biodiversity and how his lab traces food webs with DNA. Dr. Scott Clem (Illinois State University) covers five groups of flies, which visit at least 72% of the world’s crops; from the two-millimeter midges that pollinate cacao and carry a $120 billion chocolate industry to hoverflies, whose larvae eat several hundred aphids apiece. Gabrielle LaTora (UGA Extension, Fulton County) closes on wasps: the narrow waist, why anything that stings is female, and the tomato hornworm you should leave alone. Runtime about 1 hour 21 minutes.
Great Southeast Pollinator Census: August 21–22, 2026. Educators attending live earned 1 PLU; this is the archived recording, and no credit or applicator CEU applies.
Chapters
0:00 Welcome and introduction to Dr. Jason Schmidt
0:56 Schmidt: how the Tifton lab studies food webs
2:52 Habitat work with solar, blueberry, and apple growers
5:32 The Insect Atlas: 90% of animal species are insects
8:43 Georgia’s lady beetles, down to two millimeters
9:30 Life-stage diversity in Geocoris punctipes
11:00 Mouthparts and function, from vespids to ants
13:48 Super flyers, dragonfly eyes, and wing venation
15:52 Micro air vehicles built from insect wings
17:42 Q&A: where to get the pollinator.org posters
18:33 Introduction to Dr. Scott Clem
19:54 Clem: confessions of a dipterist
20:59 What is a fly? Count the wings
23:02 Myophily: fly pollination defined
24:15 When flies fly: cool hours, shade, spring and fall
26:26 What fly larvae do for a living
28:45 Group 1: Nematocera, midges and mosquitoes
31:25 Midges pollinate cacao: a $120 billion industry
31:52 Group 2: lower Brachycera and the bee flies
34:38 Group 3: calyptrates, blow flies and flesh flies
35:53 Pawpaws and the grower’s “stink station”
37:55 Group 4: acalyptrates and thick-headed flies
40:07 Group 5: hoverflies, the flying eyeballs
41:14 Syrphinae larvae and the aphids they eat
42:58 Eristalinae: 65% of species, born in dead wood
45:46 Why leaving dead wood matters
46:29 Hoverfly migration and Georgia’s 158 species
49:57 Flies visit 72% of the world’s crops
50:55 Fly-friendly native plants for your yard
52:04 Clem’s book chapter and QR codes
53:06 Introduction to Gabrielle LaTora
54:23 Fulton County census counts on August 22
55:47 Classifying wasps: Hymenoptera and Apocrita
56:36 The narrow waist and what a petiole is
58:56 Ovipositors, and why a stinger means female
1:00:40 Social wasps, castes, and defending the nest
1:02:45 Solitary wasps: the vast majority
1:03:52 How a solitary female provisions her nest
1:05:30 Nest types: burrows, mud pots, and plant stems
1:06:18 Predators versus parasitoids
1:09:19 Cotesia congregata and the tomato hornworm
1:10:32 Why to leave a cocoon-covered hornworm alone
1:10:54 Why wasps visit flowers at all
1:12:29 Wasp versus fly: the side-by-side comparison
1:14:57 Q&A: sterile workers and the sting as defense
1:16:35 Do parasitized hornworms keep feeding?
1:18:08 Hornets, hooked wings, and where pollen sticks
1:19:29 A small nest with no larvae in sight
1:20:21 Closing thanks
Questions Answered in This Session
I have five seconds on a flower. Fly or wasp?
Count the wings: flies two, bees and wasps four. Flies also have very large eyes, short antennae, and no scopa, the pollen basket loaded on a bee’s hind leg.
If I can’t see the wings, what else works?
The head. A fly’s is a dome with “pancake eyes” and two short stubby antennae between them. A wasp’s is hammerhead-shaped, with small eyes out toward the ends, a smooth hairless body, and long thread-like antennae.
What should I plant to bring flies in?
Mountain mint first, then Virginia pepperweed, smartweeds, asters, and blue mistflower. The pepperweed and smartweeds have tiny flowers and no visual appeal, but Clem said flies work them heavily.
I found a hornworm covered in cocoons. Should I kill it?
Leave it alone. Those are Cotesia congregata pupae, 30 or 40 wasps that will emerge hunting more hornworms. If the feeding damage bothers you, move the caterpillar to a wooded area.
Resources
Common Hoverflies of Georgia: Clem’s new guide, covers most southeastern states
Field Guide to the Flower Flies of Northeastern North America: his recommended ID guide
Pollinator Partnership (pollinator.org): the free regional posters Schmidt showed
Fulton County Extension: census counting events, Saturday, August 22, 2026
Great Southeast Pollinator Course · UGA Center for Urban Agriculture · gsepc.org