You are describing what sounds like a hornet. It is black, has a white
face, and the last 1/3 of the abdomen is white (3 bands if you look
closely). It builds a nest of paper, shaped like a football and is usually
found hanging from a tree limb. They will leave the nest in winter. You can
knock it down then. Best to leave them alone until then. They can be very
nasty when disturbed. Unlike the honeybee, it does not loose its stinger
when it stings you. It will come back for more.
 
Chip
 
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> From: Albert W Needham <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Info
> Date: Sunday, September 07, 1997 20:18
>
> I received the following message.
>
> Could someone in Michigan thereabouts help
> these folks out.
> ----------
> >From - Sun Sep 07 20:03:12 1997
> Received: from emout19.mail.aol.com (emout19.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.45])
> by xensei2.xensei.com (8.8.3/4.22.97) with ESMTP id RAA31227 for
> <[log in to unmask]>; Mon, 8 Sep 1997 17:39:55 -0400
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Received: (from root@localhost)
>           by emout19.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0)
>           id RAA29342 for [log in to unmask];
>           Mon, 8 Sep 1997 17:39:21 -0400 (EDT)
> Date: Mon, 8 Sep 1997 17:39:21 -0400 (EDT)
> Message-ID: <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Could you help me out??
> Status:  O
> X-Mozilla-Status: 0001
> Content-Length: 633
>
> My uncle owns a boathouse around where I live in Michigan, and just
> recently...he found an unusual type of bee swarming around a tree nearby.
>  Could you help us find out what type of bee it is?  It would help us out
> a
> lot.
>
> Here is what I was told it looked like:
>
> a little bit larger than a yellowjacket either dark black or dark brown
> colored body & (i don't know the proper termilogy on bees, so im going to
> have to pinch hit) it had a white spot on its head and another one on its
> tail
>
> If you could help us out, we would really appreciate it, if not thank you
> for
> your time anyway.
>
> Sincerely,
>        Goofy12345
> ---------------------
>
> Thanks,
>
> Al,
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------
>  [log in to unmask] - Scituate,MA,USA
>            Cerberus - Three Sites In One
>       Honey Bees-LottoLand-Doktor Finkle
>       http://www.xensei.com/users/alwine/