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.
Buzz off
Submitted 4 days ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
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Comments
AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca 4 days ago
blackbrook@mander.xyz 4 days ago
I don’t know if this is true but I’ve heard yellow jackets get intoxicated on fermenting fruit and become mean drunks.
booscience@beehaw.org 4 days ago
It’s true, I used to be a yellow jacket
partial_accumen@lemmy.world 4 days ago
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.
AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca 4 days ago
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.
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 3 days ago
Live by the stinger, die by the stinger
Mpatch@lemmy.world 4 days ago
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.
AmbientChaos@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
I’m so confused, the paper wasps are 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
AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca 4 days ago
They’re fun to watch because they often grab caterpillars from plants and take them away or eat them nearby. Great for gardens.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 4 days ago
I used to own a house with two pear trees. I learned to pick up any fruit that dropped, because the pear juice would ferment under the skin in the warm sun, the wasps would pierce the skin and drink the pear liqueur, and then relentlessly chase me around the yard. It turns out that wasps are belligerent drunks, which shouldn’t be surprising.
Nouvellalia@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Bees on the other hand, are very fun drunks.
I was friends with a hive for years. One year they invited me to a spring bee-kegger. Many were just dancing, but some were so drunk they couldn’t lift-off from the grass because they couldn’t avoid the grass blades long enough to get into the sky.
I started providing a lift-off service so the drunk ones could keep dancing. Some of them were so drunk they just started snuggling my hand and would crawl into the nooks between my fingers and pass out for a while before waking refreshed and hitting the dance swarm again.
When I got home my daughter ran to me and gave me a hug. She jumped back so suddenly I was worried she almost killed a stray bee hiding somewhere and got stung.
“Where have you been?!” She said to me.
“Oh, I’ve been at a bee party all afternoon. They invited me. They were very drunk. It was amazing”
“Oh, that makes sense then. You smell like the essence of flowers, but not in a good way.”xzinik@feddit.cl 1 day ago
did you know that sober bees kick drunk bees out of the hive and dont let them in until they habe been sober for a while, and if they get violent/do it often they might be maimed by guard bees?
moakley@lemmy.world 3 days ago
This is likely the best thing I will read today.
LeeeroooyJeeenkiiins@hexbear.net 4 days ago
There’s a portion of my porch with a ramp where they clearly didn’t measure the width of the poles in the side of the ramp guard rail so there’s visible gaps in the top and bottom portions where it meets the actual rail and wasps LOVE to hover on in there and poke around, up to no good. I assume they’re after moisture or other insects but i want them to leave
echodot@feddit.uk 3 days ago
This is clearly wasp propaganda because wasps are not cool. They will actually attack you for no reason and then fly away thus indicating they could have always flown away.
Meanwhile bees completely ignore you.
arrow74@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
Bees have never chased me down to sting me. Wasps however…
Flyberius@hexbear.net 4 days ago
I used to keep bees. They absolutely do go psycho mode on occasion.
Floodedwomb@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I’ve been chased by bees.
jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
I once cut down a dead tree, not knowing that it contained a bees nest. They chased me until I jumped into a nearby creek. That was not fun.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 4 days ago
This is wasp propaganda.
roundup5381@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
treesapx@lemmy.world 4 days ago
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 remove my hat when in presence.
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 3 days ago
We should make wasp eating robots.
dkppunk@piefed.social 3 days ago
Agreed! I got stung once for the sin of stopping to look at a cute rabbit on a trail. Little fucker just stung my hand for no reason as I stood there. Fuck those guys. And I love insects!
binarytobis@lemmy.world 4 days ago
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.
MyVeryRealName@lemmy.world 4 days ago
bro you need to sprint more
craftrabbit@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
Yeah, consider doing it like me: I sprint for the train every day!
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
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.
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 4 days ago
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.
Krudler@lemmy.world 2 days ago
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
Soapbox@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
I’ve been stung by a bee exactly twice in my life. Both unfortunate accidents where the bee and I collided.
I have long since lost count of how many times I have been stung by wasps just for being near them.
Bees don’t make nests above my door, or under my patio awning. Or generally everywhere outside I need to be. Fuck them wasps.
Raiderkev@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Ha, same for bee stings. Once on I put my hand into one the ground, once swung my hand and hit one mid air that was just flying and didn’t expect me to move the way I did. Bees are alright.
gerryflap@feddit.nl 4 days ago
One of them is chill and just zooms around to pollinate. The other tries to get into every place I don’t want it to be violently and then starts stinging when it inevitably gets stuck. Wasps always try to get into my food, fly somewhere in my clothes where it’ll inevitably get stuck, fly into my face, etc.
I’ve been stung multiple times by both. Bees was always my full idiocy (I was obsessed with insects as a kid). Wasps was never my fault though, those cunts just put themselves in harms way only to “defend themselves” when the inevitable happens
Ooops@feddit.org 4 days ago
Thing is it’s not actually wasps but just a few very specific kinds of wasps that are assholes ruining the reputation for all.
Something similiar happens for bees. When people talk about them being endangered nowadays they don’t mean the domesticated honey bees many think about (those are cared enough for that populations are rather growing) but the many kinds of wild (and often solitary) bees.
dustyData@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Classic not all wasps apologist.
anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz 4 days ago
I feel like wasps seem more interested in both sweaty humans and our food compared to bees, so they get in your face in another way than bees do.
Our southern red brick wall houses a lot of red mason bees every year and even though they live just next to the porch they leave us be. I’ve had a tired bee take a break on my sun-warm shoulder once or twice, but that’s pretty much it.Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Yeah not all wasps.
But pretty much all the wasps I ever interact with. Idc about some other wild wasps that I never see because they’re chill and stay in the forest or something on their own.
cmbabul@slrpnk.net 3 days ago
Put themselves in harms way only to get angry about their choices and “forced to defend themselves”… why does that sound so familiar
gnufuu@infosec.pub 4 days ago
I’ve never understood their habit of nervously circling around my food for ages like some sort of pendulum of ruined picknicks. Why risk a fight when you could just get your food and fuck off? You’d think aeons of evolution would have corrected that. Sure, who doesn’t like to take a sniff or two before digging in but wasps need to grow the fuck up.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 4 days ago
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 4 days ago
Is that the Japanese hornet that eats whole colonies of bees?
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Asian giant hornet, yeah.
Aka the MuRdEr hornet
farmgineer@nord.pub 4 days ago
I cut down a tree yesterday for a few reasons. One was that these bastards were way too interested in it and it’s right next to my house’s door (the other was roots damaging the house as it grew bigger and blocking light in my window). I had one in the house the first year we moved here and that was not a fun experience.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Please tell me you’re not in the PNW. I thought we had eradicated the fuckers on this side of the big pond.
(sorry about the tree though. that sucks.)
Shelbyeileen@lemmy.world 2 days ago
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.
BananaIsABerry@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Once I listened to a pest control guy and he said “I bet you’ve noticed a lot of wolf spiders in your yard”, to which I agreed.
He told me that their pest control dumps a shit load of pest control spray that should keep them away for a while. I asked, “but isn’t that where they live? Outside?”
He didn’t seem to understand how someone could belive that the spiders should be allowed to live outside.
frosch@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Love that reply. Father of a friend paves every green spot in his property with stone floorings step by step for years now and sprays ant poison everywhere. He’s really really pissed about them ants minding their own business (like… just normal ants, not even fire ants or smth).
My response is always a “the fucking audacity of those ants. Building their colony just right there in the ground outside! Don’t they know this is your property?!”
… My comments on this topic are generally not very well received.
Tinks@lemmy.world 2 days ago
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.
Shelbyeileen@lemmy.world 2 days ago
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.
teyrnon@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
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.
Starik@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Dasus@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I think a sort of crucial point; they eat dead, rotting meat.
They don’t eat anything that lives or fights back.
Starik@lemmy.world 3 days ago
They look like their stings give you Scarlet Rot.
fonix232@fedia.io 4 days ago
Mmmm, blood honey, pairs well for breakfast with my blood diamonds.
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online 4 days ago
Yeah but maybe if an invasive species didn’t try to nest IN MY FUCKING LIGHT FIXTURES then we wouldn’t be having this convo
turtlesareneat@piefed.ca 4 days ago
I had more than that - a bunch of nests that didn’t die over the winters in my house’s attic when I bought it, behind the kneewalls. I must have killed thousands of wasps that summer. But then! They left their dirty wasp pheromones everywhere so wasps come back year after year trying to put new nests up. I have never had such a difficult relationship with an animal before. But that was before Argentine ants started attacking… fuck those bastards
NottaLottaOcelot@lemmy.ca 4 days ago
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.
psx_crab@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
Not many, majority. Only a few dozens species are asshole, and a handful of it is basically hell spawn. I have wasp often making nest near my garden, 0 sting, mostly because i live in tropical zone and in an area where asshole wasp isn’t everywhere. The only wasp attack i’ve experienced so far is when i’m 10, where a wasp landed on my belly and i panicked swap it away, got stung that way.
Majority of wasp hater come from area where asshole wasp is around.
nocturne@slrpnk.net 4 days ago
Vinylraupe@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
Not only do they kill honeybees, they even attack each other. Wasp bed.
white_nrdy@programming.dev 4 days ago
“Wasp bed” sounds like an inventive form of torture
i_am_tired_boss@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Don’t threaten me with a good time.
Leviathan@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Good. Fuck honeybees, they’re invasive here.
mlg@lemmy.world 4 days ago
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.
Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
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.
Kalothar@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
Wasp extortion from the wasp mafia, La Vespa Nostra
NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 3 days ago
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.
Ironfacebuster@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Paper Wasps ✔️ Yellowjackets ❌
A paper wasp keeps trying to make a nest in my doorway and we look at each other every time I open the door. Since they’re not aggressive they don’t do anything unless you actively are messing with them (and sometimes even then they don’t attack!)
Anyways, it flies away and I remove the beginnings of the nest every time. Then it comes back overnight and makes another one in the exact same spot. It’s a little game I play with the wasp at this point
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 2 days ago
Paper wasps are such bros! A month or two ago I stuck my hand into one of their nests inadvertantly, was greeted with what felt like electrical shocks, and my hand didn’t swell or even hurt after a minute or two.
I will always come to paper wasps’, or wasps in general, defense. I’m sure yellow jackets play an important ecological niche too, but I haven’t run into 'em enough to have an opinion on their temperament.
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Yellow jackets aren’t aggressive, they’re just annoying because they like the same foods we do, and are super persistent about it.
you_are_dust@lemmy.world 2 days ago
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.
bobo@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Idk if it’s a species difference, but European yellow jacket wasps are pretty fucking chill. I’ve only been or seen someone get stung if they accidentally squish/step on them.
On the other hand they’re soooo persistent about stealing my food and bait. Like no, you can’t steal meat from my fork, fuck off. gets slapped, and comes back with 5 more sisters to bully me out of my lunch. It’s especially bad in late summer and so we have to eat indoors because of them.
Hornets can go fuck themselves though and I try to kill them on sight if they’re around the house.
blackbrook@mander.xyz 4 days ago
It’s really because bees are fuzzy and able to be seen in a cute light whereas wasps are more metal and scary looking.
Shave_MyBeever@lemmy.world 3 days ago
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.
qyron@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
Nothing personal against wasps. But I prefer them far away from me. Which often comes into conflict with their interests, as they have this nasty tendency to invade the space I occupy, as in my house, my patio, the places I have to go in order to work, etc. If they ignore me, I’ll show the same respect. If stingers come out blazing, insecticide starts being sprayed.
luciferofastora@feddit.org 4 days ago
Got stung as a stupid kid who found a few piles of dead branches you could bounce on like a trampoline. Yeah, turns out one of them had a nest underneath, and the tenants weren’t quite happy with the upstairs neighbour partying so hard the ceiling came down.
Absolutely my fault, no question about it, and my only feeble defense is “I didn’t know”.
My issue is now, that I struggle with seizing up in panic if I know (or think) there is one mear me. Not the “shrieking trying to run away” kind of panic, just freezing in place, struggling to breathe or move. I can’t chase them away or anything, even if they were docile and harmless enough.
Murse@slrpnk.net 4 days ago
If it has a stinger, doesn’t make me honey, and is at all aggressive toward humans, it’s kill on sight. Idc if it’s a pollinator or w/e - either the other pollinators can fill in the gap after its death/extinction, or the ecosystem collapses… which we’re speedrunning the latter anyway, so fuck it, we’re not going to make a significant impact on the global collapse of life by being a little extra aggressive to fuckers like wasps, mosquitos, etc.
LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org 4 days ago
My favorite wasps are the wood-boring parasitoid varieties. Ovipositors twice as long as the rest of their bodies, and they drill holes in trees and logs to get to the grubs in the wood to lay an egg. They’re incredibly chill to be around and tons of fun to watch while they work
Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
A bee has never aggressively investigated my lunch and refused to fuck off when I’m eating outside.
Little1Lost@gehirneimer.de 4 days ago
the ones inspecting human food are one of the few agressive species. take care and maybe set up some traps at the table
Anivia@feddit.org 4 days ago
3d print a fake hornet nest and put it near or on the table. Scares away wasps
grandma@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Like I’d happily spare some if they’d just get the fuck out of my face
brbposting@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Decoy plate: put a lil food for ‘em a distance away from ya. Blew my mind when I first saw someone do that