Common wasp and germanicus vespula (european wasp) are both considered pest. Both dont pollinate. And both kill and destroy other friendly species when they do not harass you to steal your food. Same for asiatic and common hornet.
All other wasp and hornet like the blue hornet are friendly and help the ecosystem. But you will rarely encounter them cause they let you the fuck alone and mind their own business…
They ARE in fact both pollinators! I get the wasp hate, but they are rather misunderstood, that’s what the meme is about! Depending on the region you live in, learn which wasp and bee species are invasive in your area and support the native ones (including the common wasp and germanicus vespula).
I try to give paper wasps a pass if I randomly see them, but if they come inside or start a nest in outdoor equipment, they’re gone. They only get consideration because they’re pollinators and generally not aggressive, but they still will attack so my patience is thin.
The wasp stings me to protect its family, I kill the wasp to protect mine. Glad it’s me who’s the giant.
*Beeality
Also, wasps will just sting you because “fuck you.” Fuck that. Burn in heck.
I don’t think I was ever stung by a wasp, and I even held one in my hand once.
I’ve had a wasp fly up to me, land on me, sting me, and fly off, for no fucking reason! It has happened more than once. They’re assholes.
Are you the wasp whisperer? The wasperer?
I send them after my enemies.
I have the same experience. I act very carefully around them not to threaten them. I also put a tiny bit of my food on the side for them when they get interested - I love watching them eat. They’re like little insect tigers - striped, fierce, but tiny!
Ok fair but of the choices to have buzzing near me, I’m still picking the bee every time.
Sure, but wasps made a nest right by our front door, and have the audacity to sting me when I simply walked outside. Maybe not assholes on purpose, but they deserved what they got.
can sting more than once
They have barbed stingers. Their stinger rips the bottom part of their abdomen off when they try to retract it. They don’t live through that.
Do you know why that would be a positive evolutionary trait? Clearly, if they try to retract it, at some point in the history they must have been able to do so.
Because bee stingers are mostly used against other insects. They don’t get stuck in a chitin exoskeleton, only in the more flexible skin tissue of mammals. In insects the barbs instead pull out soft tissue from inside, thus making them more lethal (to the bees victim).
It makes it more dangerous : the sting is attach to the venom bag, so the venom bag gets to empty itself whole if it stays. Evolution would have chosen the survival of the hive, not the survival of the bee.
One thing is weird though : you can extract the sting of a wasp with a pincer. The wasp will live through it. Why do the bee dies when it loses it’s sting and not the wasp?
Bee genetics are wild and helped develop a system where it doesn’t matter that the workers have tendencies to off themselves.
The worker bees do not reproduce, so their survival after stinging is not that important.
The are able to sting bears more than once
There we go, that’ll learn 'em for having singers. Now to enjoy some peace.
Nope. Don’t care. I’m a scientific realist. 99.999% of the time I educate myself on matters such as these if I am misinformed, and change my stance promptly based on new information.
But not in this case.
Fuck this meme, fuck this info, and fuck wasps.
At least educate youtself on the bee part, it’s really interesting!
Yeah, they are, just really hate wasps and this was sort of a joke comment. Except for the hating wasps part. did I mention that?
I had a yellow jacket fly out of the blue then land on my heel and sting me for absolutely no reason! There wasn’t even a nest nearby!
Then a week later another yellow jacket landed on my arm and stung me right under my watch band
Pretty rude if you ask me
You know what you did.
I have learned thru my years of gardening that wasps and hornets are a good thing to have around, not just bees. Not only do they help pollinate flowers, they are predators to some of the most annoying garden pests. I think I’ve counted at least 7 different wasp species in my garden this summer, they’ve done a great job keeping the larger pest populations manageable.
To them you are a giant who can easily kill them
And I relish in proving them right. Fuck wasps and fuck your wasp propaganda.
I’ve given bees snacks when they’re tuckered out on a hot day. I’ve let them rest on me. But with wasps and hornets it’s on sight.
Honest question: how do the typical bees (the big ones used for honey production) negatively affect native bee populations? Competition for polen?
You basically got it. European honey bees consume the already dwindling nectar and pollen resources for North American native pollinators. Furthermore, European honey bees are also worse at actually pollinating North American flowers because they did not co-evolve with the species we have here.
They’re problematic even in their native range because people keep too many of them and they compete with other important pollinators, often other bee species. Honey bees don’t pollinate all species they take pollen and nectar from and those species are then not visited by their specialised pollinators, leading to decrease in numbers of both plants and pollinators.
Arent those conflicting statements? How can they be taking up all the pollen AND be worse pollinators?
They are not conflicting but I can see how you might think that. Pollen is plant sperm. In order for pollination to occur many plants have special needs. The pollen has to be “picked up” and transferred to the female stigma. One example of how honeybees take nectar but don’t pollinate flowers are flowers that require “buzz pollinating”.
Hope that clears things up. Happy to answer anymore questions (I am just someone who is passionate about nature I’m not a professional or anything).
Just because you waste 80% of the food you get doesn’t mean you can’t still be twice as fast as everyone else at getting new food!
Do the flowers get pollinated? That seems like the important part.
They often don’t. Honey bees are surprisingly good at collecting pollen of many plant species without transfering it to other flowers and pollinating them.
I think wasps and hornets are beautiful, fascinating creatures. Most of them don’t mess with me even a few inches from a nest. There are one or two species that are looking for war and get the spray.
I’ve been stung about half a dozen times by wasps so far this year. They’re beginning to piss me off.
And as an adult, my sister stepped on a hornets nest and damn near ended up dead. 150 stings had her in ICU for 4 days.
Well maybe it would be easier to “Give them some Space” if their pupae didn’t completely cut off all their food processing in the fall leading to rampant aggression as they seek out sugary and fermented smells such as beer, fruits, and candy.
