A bee has never aggressively investigated my lunch and refused to fuck off when I’m eating outside.
Like I’d happily spare some if they’d just get the fuck out of my face
Decoy plate: put a lil food for ‘em a distance away from ya. Blew my mind when I first saw someone do that
I don’t know, they’re not all created the same. When I’m in the pool, I let bees land on me, or will fish them out of the water with my hands. Paper wasps look super frightening, but they’re even more docile than honey bees. Yellow jackets on the other hand are complete assholes. We had a nest of them in the yard once and they would go way out of their way to sting people, just for the hell of it. Like not anyone close to the nest or anything, just someone on the patio chilling. I would leave a beehive, but I eradicated the yellow jacket nest.
Yep, paper wasps are chill as fuck. I had a hive of them living on my deck under the hand rail. I’d go out and chill with them daily with my coffee during that summer. They would stare at me for a bit. Then get back to eating bits of my deck.
I’m so confused, the paper wasps around here are territorial assholes. Had a nest built on my porch and had to stop using that door. We let them be because we built the house in their woods, but they were definitely not chill at all haha
Edit: Did some learning, the regional species of paper wasps we encounter are known not only for their aggression but also their vastly more painful sting. Wonderful!
They’re fun to watch because they often grab caterpillars from plants and take them away or eat them nearby. Great for gardens.
Yellow jackets on the other hand are complete assholes. We had a nest of them in the yard once and they would go way out of their way to sting people, just for the hell of it.
This was my experience too. I had thought that bees had moved into a bush in my yard. I was happy to have bees there. A week later I was mowing the grass and felt several stabs of pain on my back and wrist. I turn around and see the air is filled with them. I had swatted one in my escape and had a corpse to inspect later and found it was a Yellow jacket wasp. From a distance I could see they were entering and exiting a hole near the bottom of the bush. A quick internet search later I knew that they were nearly dormant at night, and that they need a special oil they produce on the outside of their body to breath. Dawn dish soap apparently strips that away and they die, and its not toxic to the ground or environment.
I put half a bottle of Dawn squirted into their hole at the bottom of the bush at night. I never saw another Yellowjack wasp.
Ugh, sounds awful, but glad you found a solution. I don’t remember what I put down the hole they had at the base of a tree. Wasn’t dawn, I don’t think.
I wasn’t prepared for those stings on my skin to still be hurting some a week later.
Oh, they’re SO painful. Really unnecessarily nasty.
I don’t know if this is true but I’ve heard yellow jackets get intoxicated on fermenting fruit and become mean drunks.
It’s true, I used to be a yellow jacket
This is wasp propaganda.
this fuck stung the back of my head last week for the sin of taking out the trash.
Was out for a week for work. Got back to my front door and got attacked by a nest that had been made while I was out. I relished nuking them.
I’ve been stung by wasps dozens of times. Never been stung by a bee. I say hello to bumble bees. Wasps get none such niceties from me. Except for tarantula hawks. Those guys are way too fucking big not to doff my hat when in presence.
A few months back I was visiting my retired parents, and I wanted to break the routine a bit and decided to sit at a lakeside table we never used because it was redundant.
As I walked up to the table and sat my stuff down, I heard a “FWOMP” followed by a sound I can only describe as “chitinous rubbing”. I slowly checked my surroundings until I noticed an almost basketball sized mass of wasps waking up that had fallen with part of a hive underneath the table. In a moment of extreme calculation I decided the only one of six things on the table worth risking stings for was the tablet, and I sprinted for the first time in years to get away.
So, I guess thanks to the wasps for the fun new core memory.
bro you need to sprint more
Last time I was stung by a wasp I was just standing on the street. I wasn’t even moving. I was standing for about 30 minutes waiting when suddenly a wasp came, stung me on the neck and went away flying.
It was a “fuck you in particular” with qll the letters.
That happened to me too. I was standing in line at the bakery and got stung in the neck by a fucking wasp I didn’t even see coming. Fuck those guys.
Literally my exact story with some Minor details.
Standing at bus stop, arms crossed, staring into distance, 15 minute wait
Watched the fucker fly from across the street, land on my arm, sting me, fly away
I think we can all agree this fucker deserves some hate, though:
Is that the Japanese hornet that eats whole colonies of bees?
Asian giant hornet, yeah.
Aka the MuRdEr hornet
I’m a gardener and every time someone approaches my door to solicit pest management, I ask if it will kill the wasps and spiders. Every single time they share an excited yes, I get to tell them that I don’t kill my gardening coworkers.
Wasps and spiders eat the bugs that eat my crops. Pesticides also greatly increase your risk of health issues. No thank you.
The nest of meat-eating vulture bees:
I think a sort of crucial point; they eat dead, rotting meat.
They don’t eat anything that lives or fights back.
They look like their stings give you Scarlet Rot.
My dog got attacked by a colony of yellowjackets for having the audacity to go near their nest that was just on the other side of our fence line. He ended up in the ER for anaphylaxis. The neighbor’s dogs got stung too, though they weren’t allergic. Those little cunts can all die in a fire.
Paper wasps I hate less, I just wish they’d stop trying to make nests on the eaves of my house. They’re chill, but I just want them to find somewhere else to call home.
There are 3D models available for paper wasp nests, that can stop them from latching to your house. Wasps are HIGHLY territorial, and will not start a new colony nearby to another nest.
I left an old one up by my garage, and despite it being empty, no wasps come remotely close to my the front of my house anymore.
For the record, soap kills insects. Get a good spray bottle, put a lot of soap in it, more than recommended online for me.
I genocided a ground wasp nest I stepped on some time back with the soap water, they don’t make the connection between me and getting sprayed. I spent like three hours spraying countless wasps.
They jive around when sprayed, then maybe 12 seconds they go on their back convulsing, still within a minute.
Many wasp species are quite gentle. We get a lot of great golden digger wasps on our spotted bee balm and despite looking quite scary, they are quite gentle and avoid human contact.
We have a bird bath and when the water has evaporates, the blue mud dauber wasps will sit on the side and very patiently watch me refill it.
They eat parasites and protect the garden. Truly, the more the merrier.
I’m usually surrounded by paper wasps who don’t really seem to care unless you actively injure them. Have been bumped many times and they contonued on their way.
I’ve heard yellow jackets are usually the type to screw you over because they can.
(Un)fortunately, afaik yellow jackets are actually a pretty effective means of pest control for several crops because they more aggressively collect protein for their larvae.
because they more aggressively collect protein for their larvae.
Sorry, that’s me offering them a small speck of meat so they leave the rest of my plate alone.
Wasp extortion from the wasp mafia, La Vespa Nostra
🪙 have some Lemmy gold
I got stung by a wasp when I was a kid literally just for sitting in the backseat. I had done nothing at all, and I got stung like three times.
The parasitic wasps can fuck right off. I worked in the southern I25 corridor of Colorado for a while and saw Tarantula Hawks. My first thought was that I had seen a humming bird the first time I saw one - they are that big. The poor little male tarantulas are just venturing for a end of life hookup and then they have to worry about being eaten alive by the spawn of these fuckers. Poor bastards.
Parasitic wasps keep hornworms from destroying my garden and haven’t stung me once. I vote they stay.
Also, I like figs.
The only time I’ve been stung by a bee is when I was little and walking outside bare foot and stepped on one. I’ve been stung by wasps for things like being outside or being inside when a wasp got in the house.
I’ve gotten stung by a dying wasp who crawled to my mousepad and I unknowingly placed my hand on it. Fuck those assholes
Ha, the 1st time I was “stung” by a bee as a kid, I was sitting poolside and smashed my hand onto one.
I get stung all the time. I mean not every year but maybe every other, but I work outside. If wasps nests are so sacrosanct and important, why do some species leave them laying on the ground?
Fuck Ground wasps. All stinging wasps are like mean drunks when it gets hot outside. Obviously there are thousands of other species, few of which sting.
