ABSTRACT
This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part highlights the economic importance of social insects. To determine the economic importance of social insects is complicated by the fact that they are usually beneficial as well as harmful. The part suggests that the beneficial aspects of Polistes wasps outweigh their negative impact. People who are very sensitive to insect venom may become ill or die. A social insect colony represents a super organism with the queen at the center, often protected from external perturbation. The biological control of social insects has not been very successful. The persistent contact insecticides, widely available after World War II were effective, killing off workers over an extended period of time. If the toxicant is too effective the workers may be killed before the control agent is carried into a colony and distributed to other workers and the queen.
