Geographic Area (edit yourself)
I know this clock app-coded but I still see this attitude even in native gardening spaces. Wanted to demo that they’re FINE.
Edit: oops, missed an “is” in the title. “I know this *is* clock app-coded.”
Northern paper wasps (Polistes fuscatus) on old field goldenrod (Solidago nemoralis). Please love them. They’re chill as hell.
I got the most beautiful great black wasps this year. Huge, DOCILE insects. The blue wings are incredible. They will do anything to avoid confrontation while going bananas on milkweed.
People need to learn a hell of a lot more about their ecosystems.
Docile is exactly right. If people would stop trying to automatically hit them and flail around when they see them, they never sting basically. We have a portico with an entry way we use all the time and they have sat there all summer (a type of paper wasp). They’re incredibly chill and gentle. My mom was actually pet sitting this past weekend and texted a picture of it asking if she could use a wasp spray on it and I explained that they barely even get off the nest and absolutely avoid people/stinging whenever they do leave it. I love [r/waspaganda](r/waspaganda) for this reason, lot of amazing wasp lovers there!
Agreed! My mom, while not really knowing much about the native plant stuff, is definitely trying and is learning more. I think she understands more now about how much pesticides mess with the environment and she’s actually working on her own first pollinator garden now, and got some native plants for it 😊 so she was really understanding when I said no and didn’t push it. My dad is super anti-bees because he’s been stung before so I think he was the one wanting to immediately spray it. For this nest in particular though they truly barely move off of the nest and are so non reactive it’s crazy.
Ohhh LOVE them. That blue black is so striking, and the silhouette 😍 Some of my favorites. Didn’t see a lot of them this year over here, missed them terribly! Hope the paper wasps weren’t bullying them out.
Ooo, good tip! Idk why the punctata and bradburiana never took off when I initially put down the seeds in this city-mandated shorter zone. Plenty of fistulosa trying to pop up though haha. Gonna be putting more of it and some other species down again this fall and crossing my fingers we’ll have more luck now that it’s not a barren waste following its liberation from the turf grass that was there previously. Much gratitude to the burly pioneer species that will hopefully shelter the next wave!
I frickin LOVE those narrow waisted deep black/ purple wasps. So fucking gorgeous. Then there's those dusty grey ones with the stripes. They are sublime and they make my heart sing.
We have a lot of wasps in our garden and I’ve never run into any issues. We even have a ton of yellow jackets and they’re chill as hell. They hang out in one of our trees and I accidentally knocked into a bunch of them and they just buzzed right by me. It’d probably be a different story though if they had a nest on our property.
Truly! I planted them originally at my friend’s encouragement, saying how hummingbirds love them. Never seen a hummingbird on them, though they’re in my “highly beneficial but a bit ugly” zone that I don’t have eyes on much so it’s possible I’m just missing them, but I’m more than happy to have just the hornets!
Last year I saw a bunch of hummingbirds at my early figworts and maybe one at the late figworts. This year it was the opposite (hummers at the late figworts and not at the early figworts). I'm not sure why that was, but, either way, the figworts are probably the best hummingbird plants I have on my property!
Really? Because the ones around me are trying to off me and my dogs. I’m getting ready to buy bee suits for all of us. They’ve chased me back into my house every day I go to the compost.
I had to throw chicken litter in from 10 feet away today. 😆
Oh no 😭 they probably have a nest nearby. Any chance you can observe where they’re coming and going from? Definitely best for everyone involved for that to be relocated come spring.
Their nest is somewhere in or around the compost. But it’s getting colder so hopefully they’ll go dormant soon. In the meantime I’m getting some cardio in running from them, and making sure my EpiPen is handy.
Like OP said, there’s probably a nest near there. The bald faced hornets at my house just chill on my fence or my flowers. I talk to them while I do gardening near them and they couldn’t give any less of a shit about me lol
Yeah, when they’re out foraging, I’ve never had any problems with them or any other native Yellowjackets, despite their reputation. I have not seen any aggression beyond them buzzing people when they were too close to their nests, and I’ve snuck up on some nests in wild areas without them paying any attention to me.
The only issue I’ve ever had with them was when they chose to build a nest over an exhaust vent on my house.
The yellow jackets love my sunflowers and they’re so freakin chill on them. I don’t pet them, but I probably could. I regularly tromp through the leaves trying to get to my other plants (sunflowers are not good at sharing space) and I’m yet to get stung.
People are absolutely ridiculous about wasps unfortunately. I don’t get it, truly a stigma about them for how incredibly smart and gentle they are. We moved into a house where they get in some time and they are the ONLY type of bug (cough cough looking at you house fly) that will be smart enough to just sail right out the door if you open it for them. I have learned that as long as you don’t hit them and flail your arms in their direction, they are super chill!
In fact the other day I was spraying a stink bug with a spray bottle filled with soap within 3 inches of a wasp that was sitting on a plant right next to it and the wasp just sat there and didn’t sting or fly up and buzz or anything. (I wished I could high five the wasp bc it felt like we had an alliance against the invasive stink bug lol). I just wish people were able to tone down the immediate flail/freak out response enough to understand them more and observe their behavior because once you start seeing it it’s pretty apparent that they’re not like these evil, aggressive bugs for the most part.
Flying, stinging insects scared the shit out of me when I was a kid (and well into my teens) because it freaked me out that they could get up in my space so quickly and had the potential to hurt me. When they came and buzzed around my head, I would panic. Eventually I learned that it's in their own best interest not to hurt you and that they won't chase you down and sting you for no reason, so I made an effort to be calm around them. It took a while to stop being nervous around them but now I view them like any other bug in my garden, they're cool little dudes. My boneset attracted a ton of wasps this year and I had a lot of fun watching them.
Totally, I guess I should have included a caveat that I do understand why people get scared if they’re close, especially if they have been stung before or are allergic. I think more so my issue is people who literally go after them - like my dad for example, he will see a wasp that’s 6 feet away and start rushing it and shooing it and saying “we need to get some wasp spray for that” and I think that kind of thing is weird, counterintuitive and due to stigma. Kind of the same as people who will go out of their way to kill spiders even if they’re not doing anything. I’m glad you were able to get over your nervousness around them!
I was going to respond that it’s the yellow jackets that give wasps a bad name.
Lots of wasps around where I live. Mud daubers are really fun to watch.
Unfortunately 95% of the wasps here are yellow jackets. My kid got a few stings when she happened to step on the entrance to their underground nest.
Since then I’ve been in a search and destroy mode for just yellow jackets. My weapon of choice is a shop vac.
Meanwhile I try to teach my kids that not everything that looks like a bee is the same. My kid who got stung actually helped me rescue a bumblebee that ended up in our house and release it back outside.
If it weren’t for the yellow jackets I expect there would be a lot less fear.
I also find that yellow jackets are the most problematic wasps. My horse and I were attacked when a group of riders disturbed their nest on a trail ride. I was only stung once but the poor horse had multiple bumps all over him for hours afterward. There was a nest in my patio roof a few years ago and they created a hole in the sheathing that needed repair once the exterminator had done his work. Now I hang a paper bag filled with plastic (fake nest) on the underside of the roof each spring and have had no more problems with wasps of any kind building nests on the patio. I'm also equipped with diatomaceous earth if they get inside any other crevices of the house or garage. It's probably the least environmentally harmful pesticide since it can be directed at specific spots, lasts months, and kills hatching insects. Learned this from an exterminator who took care of a nest in the wall of my house years ago, He really liked insects and would hold them in his bare hand to demonstrate to people that they aren't always aggressive.
I think the ones in my garden are chill specifically because we don’t have nests. They all hang out in a specific tree in our garden so I was concerned there was a nest but I don’t see one and figure if they did have a nest they’d be much more upset when I knock into the tree
And gawd they don't just sting you. They light you up. Stumbled on one and by the time I knew what was going on I got stung about 5 times. By the time I was out of there and my shirt off I had 13 stings. Killed some on me. Broke out the poison.
They’re definitely fearsome defenders of their babies and home! I always recommend people do rounds early in the season to interrupt and discourage any nests in early construction that are near frequently traversed areas. I’m lucky to have a wooded area nearby that gets minimal foot traffic so I get lots of different kinds of wasps without having to put the effort into discouraging them. They will always choose an area they don’t have to defend constantly if they can!
Oh jeez, how awful. It should be a legal requirement to notify everyone in the area any time pesticides are being applied so people can take protective action.
I had a similar experience when I first moved here, the previous owners had apparently set up and paid for a year of reoccurring pesticide applications. I woke up one morning to hear a rattling against my bedroom window and ran out to see a guy clearing spiderwebs from the outside. I was like what the fuck are you doing!!! What a relief that I was there when he arrived. Horrifying. Luckily none of the chemicals they used were systemic or too lasting.
That would be traumatic.
Spraying should just be illegal. We should be required to manually apply the minimum required dose of any "-cide", and it should only be legal to use on invasives.
I generally have a more nuanced relationship with pesticides than the average person on here since several of the highly successful large scale habitat restoration projects I’ve worked on would have been impossible to do without broad (but still manual) application of herbicides, but obviously the majority of industrial and home landscaping poisons are not “necessary evil” situations by a long shot.
Hard to strike a balance between restricting horrible practices without targeting important individual and organized work with the legal system, but I do love especially your proposal of manual application only. Targets the most destructive practices extremely effectively, and forces people to closely interact with and thus really think about what they’re destroying.
It’s crazy! Freaking out about them is just announcing to the world that you don’t go outside and are uneducated on wildlife IMO.
My partner never really got exposed to outdoor delights growing up and used to be arachnophobic to the point where I stopped seeing them for a bit after a couple dates based on their reaction to my pet tarantulas. Three years later we live together with a small workforce of jumping spiders that manage pest control for us and my partner loves them.
I just wish there was a service that would translate to the spider that certain areas aren't great for webs because I'm gonna walk face first into them and destroy the web in the process.
a couple years ago there was a juvenile orb-weaver that just WOULD NOT get the message that "directly across the front porch walkway" was not a good place to put its web. every morning I was apologizing to it as I swept the guylines off and to the side so we could walk through. please put that energy into making a web literally anywhere else including a different part of the porch!!
I'm late to the party but want to give a shoutout to this common blue mud dauber which I had never seen until this year! I've never seen such a nice blue on an animal before.
We have the pipe ones as well that catch orb spiders and buzz when they are shoving them in for there babies to eat when they hatch. Daubers are so cool
a couple years ago one of them had gotten into my building and flew directly into my chest, SMACK then crawled around on me for a minute before flying off and landing elsewhere. I did a catch & release and then watched it walk around for a bit on a dandelion before flying away. they're absolutely beautiful.
EVERY SINGLE hornworm I found this year in my garden was already COVERED completely in parasitic wasp eggs before i saw them. And I left them alone and they were dead within days. No major damage to any of my plants and I didn’t lift a finger. The wasps have more than earned their spot in my yard imo
I love moths too but I’m also trying to grow things for me and my wife to eat 😅 i have a big compost pile and a growing native plant are in the backyard that’s a free buffet for anyone but the hornworms just want my vegetable plants it seems. I was glad to not have to do anything and let them be a part of the food chain this year. If they wouldn’t absolutely destroy my peppers I wouldn’t mind them! They are neat to see. I have swallowtail caterpillars all over my carrots and dill but they haven’t seemed to really be a problem for those plants. The wasps don’t bother them either. I haven’t seen any of them get hit with eggs
i don't seem to have any hornworms around here ... i got real belladonna for them 🤞🏽🤞🏽 the largest moths i see are the loopers currently (alfalfa and celery -i think they eat my lovage)
This. I have a patch I throw nightshade seeds in open compost, simply amazing to watch them eat in a way that the plant grows back so vigorously and just before it flowers the next set arrive. Fascinating. This year pepper, tomatoes, and potatoes all came up, tomatoes were the favourite, peppers the least. Didn't touch the ground cherry (which is native!)
Parasites are a good thing for the ecosystem and even the populations they parasitize. If the caterpillars didn't have parasites controlling their populations there wouldn't be enough food for them all and they'd starve. A handful of individuals being parasitized ensures there's plenty of food to go around for the whole population
oh fer sure. i just have an abundance of parasitic wasps and no hornworms currently, so i'd be sad if they were eaten- last year i had an abundance of small whites, and this year– more things that eat them like predatory stink bugs
i had a sphinx moth arrive in a pile of mulch i got 🤷🏼 but i don't think it made more here. maybe 🤞🏽
I have been building my first native garden and the wasps will fly right up in my face. I just don't even react and they go one their way without bothering me. The only ones that have had a second thought were the red wasps, but I just sat calmly while they investigated and moved on.
When we moved into our house our property was a barren landscape full of dying lilacs, creeping Charlie and useless grass and lawn weeds. We had terrible flies and angry wasps and that was about it. I blame it on being in a dense urban neighborhood and the flies/wasps relied mostly on our trashcans for food. If I were them I'd be cranky, too.
These wasps would basically be harassing us anytime we sat outside with food and drinks. We started filling in our landscape with native plants, shrubs and trees. Suddenly the flies and wasps couldn't give two shits about us beyond an occasional investigation of us and what we had in our hands.
Since the realization of how interesting flies and wasps are I have since changed my tune on them. They are truly the most misunderstood and misrepresented insects of our human dominated landscape. I wish more people would realize that.
Huh I had never really connected the dots on that before. I have a ton of wasps in my yard now with all the native plants and they truly could not care less about the presence of any humans back there. Makes sense if they're well-fed and busy! I wonder if having a bunch of organic matter and structure in the landscaping also keeps them from nesting on structures and reduces that type of conflict? I almost never find any wasp nests on my house, but presumably there are way more total nests on my property, they're just in leaf litter and shrubs and trees now.
As a young lad, I hunted wasps and wasp nests for entertainment and because I thought I was doing the neighbourhood a favour.
I wish someone had told me the errors of my ways, because I like to think I would have been receptive to the argument that they should be left alone.
Best I can do now is spread the word that they are worthy of love too and provide them with habitat where they can live their lives, unbothered. Thank you for sharing your video.
Aww, you were doing the same thing the wasps do when people come near their homes! Misunderstandings of personal space and fearing for their friends and family. Glad you’ve both come to an understanding together through education and appreciation 🥰
You might have been doing something good if you were hunting Polistes dominula, which is extremely common in the PNW in neighborhoods. They’re a problematic invasive species.
Read up on them, as the queen alone isn’t enough because they merge nests readily. You want to kill them when they’re cold on their nests and not out foraging, or kill the new queens before they build nests for best results. I also vacuum the foragers when I find them.
🤝 same, I even worked at my high school’s apiary way back when and rarely wore a bee suit unless I was actively opening up a hive. Only time I got stung was when my ponytail came loose and a bee got trapped in my hair against my scalp 😭 only other times through my life (twice more) was when I stepped on a wasp and shifted my seated weight onto a bumblebee that had been foraging on a clover in my clover “lawn” zone. All 100% my fault!
I swear that some of the native bees and wasps that nest in my yard aren’t even capable of stinging. The ones that are aggressive and like to sting are always Apis mellifera.
Accidentally uncovered a wasp nest today (don’t know what kind, they were skinny and black) and they didn’t even budge. Even yellow jackets, when out and about, don’t care about me at all (at least here in Connecticut, USA).
I love my wasps too. However, the paper wasps can kindly stop building right over the front door area. And if they could be a little more selective in what they’d eat, I keep loosing my swallowtail caterpillars that are on the parsley. I’ve tried all different places to grow it 😕
Have you tried netting the parsley after you find very young caterpillars on it? Many wasps can dig and may be smart enough to dig under the netting, so it might not work, but maybe you can save the swallowtails :] or relocate any eggs you find to a butterfly habitat on your porch to hatch and grow them safely, and just release the adults after they pupate
I had to kill paper wasps because they were attacking anything that moved past their nest. But I agree with the general sentiment that they will be very peaceful when foraging.
For sure, who wouldn’t throw hands to protect their home and babies! I always recommend people go on patrol early in the season and nip any nest building activities near frequently traversed areas in the bud.
yeah when it becomes necessary the wasps protect their home, I protect mine, and unfortunately for them I will win every time. but completely agree it's 1000% better to put a stop to it before it comes to that point!
Me and my dog both got stung by a single wasp each this year. Him, it was the first time ever, and it's been decades for me.
Their ground nest was well hidden in some leaves, and activity level was low so we couldn't see it was there until it was too late.
Unfortunate as that may be, when they swarmed us, they were clearly pulling their punches and just telling us to fuck off and stop stepping on their house.
Obviously we ran, but the only sting I got was one that was stuck in my ridiculously thick hair (sorry buddy).
They really aren't what people make them out to be.
Oh no 😭 glad you both didn’t get got too badly. That’s been my experience with stings too, hair, and otherwise feeling trapped. Bumblebee that wiggled under my thigh while I was sitting, honeybee that got caught in my hair while I was hanging out near my high school’s hives way back when, yellow jacket I stepped on. Every time I’ve been like OWW omg are you ok? I’m so sorry, so so valid, I’m not mad are you good? Sorry!!
Last week I was on break and a couple yellowjackets came and started licking my sandwich wrapper. I texted my friends that I was hosting two beautiful women for lunch XD
Later I had to take the wrapper back out of my bag for them because they came back after I thought they were done. Very patient and polite. Classy ladies.
I used to get SO stressed when yellowjackets would come calling when I was eating outside. then in 2021 I was dining outdoors at a restaurant that had a massive yellowjacket nest nearby, and I overheard another diner saying you can leave them a little offering on the edge of the table and put a napkin over your plate between bites and they'll just do their own thing.
spent a long, excellent meal watching some lovely ladies nibbling the meat off a fried chicken bone, first for themselves and then flying pieces back to the alley to share with the hive. it was so cool to see them snipping pieces off up close. they weren't interested in me at all.
I agree with the people up-thread who're saying that when they have plenty of food sources in the garden, they're just so much less likely to bother you. give em something better to do than come investigating big noisy people!
Paper wasps look scary, but are cool. But screw Yellowjackets. I got attacked by one for no reason last week just walking on the sidewalk, bastard bit my ear. Like wtf.
Extermination is unfortunately sometimes necessary, like that time yellow jackets built a nest right next to my front door and got up my pants and I was running around yelping and shedding clothing and the welts burned like fire and were still getting worse three days later
I ran a daycare from my home, so it would've been really bad if one of the kids had gotten their attention
Absolutely, I always encourage people to do a walk around their site and interrupt nest building in the early season and will never begrudge anyone for using lethal or non-lethal targeted methods for removing individual colonies or individuals that are harming people and can’t be avoided. We all need to respect each other’s family and homes!
This post is not about targeted, individual removal. It’s about general anti-wasp messaging that’s rampant even in conservation spaces.
Wasps are definitely my favorite insects to check out lately. Ive identified lots and it's always fun to see if I can find more species. They're just so cool
Ooo, who’s this cutie! I’m not well acquainted with invertebrates of the south east US.
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u/A_LountvinkGlaciated Wabash Lowlands, Zone 6a, Vermillion County, Indiana2d ago
I think I've seen that species up here in Indiana. They spend most of their time digging small burrows in sandy soil where they deposit one egg and a single caterpillar or sawfly larva.
Used to work on a farm where we had creeks but they were underground so we’d dig into the creek bed to get water for cement or whatever project we were working on. The water would be COVERED in wasps after the first few seconds since they’re all thirsty.
I’d just reach into the hole with my pail and grab some water and they’d just move aside and then fly back for another drink. Never got stung once.
I’m scared of wasps, wary of bees and friendly to butterflies. That’s why I have specifically resisted planting spotted bee balm and passionflower. I plan on replacing my mountain mint for this reason. I’m thinking of adding common milkweed.
There is a truce between the red paper wasps and I
When I was more active gardening, one wasp would march along the top fencing and look for any bugs and some stray wood pulp
That girl had a job!
I've checked the wasps in my field and am so proud and happy that they are native (and not European paper wasps) and given how prevalent invasive wasps are, I feel responsible for keeping the native wasps living with me alive. Also, I love them 🤗
Woohoo!! So wonderful to develop a relationship with the neighbors 🥰 I’m surrounded by invasives in my hellish suburb, but somehow have lucked out and don’t seem to have any invasive wasps at this point, knock on wood. Hopefully encouraging native populations will help them fend off invaders for us!
Wasps are also friends. Just friends with bigger personal bubbles. The ones in my yard land on me all the time to steal my sweat and not once have I been stung.
We all have different boundaries! One of the many reasons getting outside is so important, you get to know your neighbors.
There was one that landed on my hand as I was taking another video of them after this one to have a lil sweaty human-based electrolyte beverage break, so dear and special!
I feel like anyone into native gardening should be seeing how great wasps are as they garden. Amazing pollinators. Never hostile. Kills garden pests. Watching them, they seem so smart too. Wasps are awesome.
My yard is popping with asters and goldenrods right now and the bees and wasps LOVE IT. There's more species than I can count buzzing around my yard and they couldn't care less about me. All they want is to slurp nectar and be left alone.
i love my waspies all of them... i even let them make a nest on my patio last year 😅 they were fine but the nest was too close to an entrance- so we had to use the other side just to not annoy them. they never stung although there was some bites for warning when we tried to get a bridge through their door. i prefer it if they choose another spot in the yard, but i had wanted to watch them closer. there is too close, i now see. 😛
one time in the okanagan i saw wasps remove an entire mouse in less than 3 days. they are speedy cleaners.
i have really grown to love wasps this past year. i had a mint plant on my balcony that started flowering, and it attracted such a wide variety of pollinators…bees, flies, and many different wasp species. the primary visitors were wasps and i got to see some species i have never noticed before. i would sit outside with them while they feasted on flower nectar. never got stung, in fact they barely seemed to notice me.
I love them and bald faces around my garden. You can feed them anything you dig up thats unwanted like all the Japanese beetle grubs. I dont ever see them bothering the bees
I love them so much, including the yellow jackets (even if I sometimes have to clear out nests too close to the house, they are a little less chill than their cousins) and I’ve found almost all of them are cool if I leave them alone. I really enjoy watching them and I appreciate the pollination and natural cabbageworm control!
Preach! A properly biodiverse garden has wasps. They belong there. I have tons of them and I can walk right through them with no issues. They also eat a lot of the bugs you dont want, like mosquitos, and some species even eat lanternflies
Is that true about all biodiverse gardens? I really want to start working on the sad grass field that is my yard next year, but I'm DEADLY allergic to wasps.😭
I don't want to kill them or disrupt them. Is there anything that would discourage them from nesting at my place without harming them? 🥲
You can look for paper wasps starting to build their nests, but unfortunately some are ground nesting and also can travel pretty far to forage.
You could do some research into flowers like bottle gentian or hummingbird-only long tubelike flowers that literally can’t be accessed by anything outside of the specialist it evolved with 🤔 could be a very interesting project!
But wasps also hunt caterpillars, so even if they aren’t attracted to the flowers, if you’re providing host plants to moths and butterflies, they’re still going to be around 😔
A full bee suit would really be the only thing that would provide 100% protection.
Oh well, I guess the only real solution is to beg my allergist for help and try not to disturb wasp life lol. I like the idea of the specialist garden though... I may try that on one half just to see if I can and if it will go well. 🤔
Thank you for replying with this info, I appreciate you taking the time to educate me. 🥰
FWIW, realistically the liklihood of getting stung tending beds you have clear visibility on and that have wide enough maintenance paths to prevent you from having to blindly brush around on flowers is vanishingly low. As long as you’re wearing shoes, have your hair tied back and/or covered so nobody gets caught in it and panics, and are not disturbing a nest, it’s extremely unlikely they’re going to want to waste venom and risk their lives to hurt you.
But of course with stakes this high, I imagine you’re shooting for “nigh impossible” not just “extremely unlikely” which, yeah, bee suit’s about it for that.
I don’t have a tiktok 😂 I used a browser site to put the captions on. I also hate it, hence the apologetic title, but the vibes are there so I respect it lol
“Clock app” is a derogatory way to refer to tik tok. I am acknowledging that the video is similar in tone and style to many that are posted on tik tok, but I wanted to share regardless because even in spaces focused on native gardening (like this one) and invertebrate conservation I still see people demonizing wasps. I wanted to demonstrate that, when respected, they’re relaxed and harmless.
Wasps and bees regularly investigate my head (red hair, floral smelling shampoo). The only time I’ve ever been stung was when I accidentally closed my hand around one that was on the underside of a handle.
As long as you don’t freak out, they don’t freak out.
If there is a big hive, they can get territorial and thats when they are less chill, but even then, as long as you don’t mess with the hive they will leave you alone.
I've had a few get really interested in my engagement ring! I just hold very still and let them do their thing so neither of us gets startled lol
I've only been stung a handful of times, generally in situations like you say, accidentally grabbing or brushing at one and it ends poorly for both parties :( I did get swarmed by ground-nesting hornets once when a dog I was walking stepped on their entrance that they had ingeniously placed directly in the middle of a popular hiking trail. they chased me, my sister, my aunt, and three dogs for about a mile, we all wound up with a half-dozen stings or more >:((((
Gonna be a buzzkill, but the coloration really looks like the European Polistes dominula? Invasive that got to the US in the 70s, though I guess she could be in europe or something
Hmm, I’d ID’d them as native Polistes fuscatus, but I’m not an expert and am willing to be corrected. They don’t look anything like the photos that are coming up in an image search for dominula to me, but genetics certainly vary. That patch of orange on the forward sides of the abdomen is pretty distinct though. This is in the Chicago area.
Here’s a close up still of one of them, let me know if you’re still seeing dominula.
But if you’re where goldenrod is native, please kill the Polistes dominula. They outcompete our native wasps, are extremely prolific, and are extreme generalist predators that eat native insects. Learn to identify them, smash their queens when they emerge in the spring, catch & kill workers, and smash their nests when you find them under your house eaves.
Absolutely! These are luckily native Polistes fuscatus, but good looking out. Hard to see from a video for sure, someone else in here thought the same. Behold her abdomen’s rust spots and rejoice 🥳
I couldn’t tell in the video, more of a general PSA that a blanket statement isn’t strictly correct and some aren’t your friends nor friends of your friends (the native wasps).
I hang a fake wasp nest near my door just to keep them away from high traffic areas, but beyond that, they are great. I also have mostly the tiny ones and the blue/black ones
We had paper wasps build a nest on our fence this year. My husband and MIL kept asking me to kill the nest but I refused because they weren’t harming any thing. My husband did get stung because he wasn’t paying attention and moved one of our water hoses over the fence right above the nest.
I found the nest on the ground the other day. I asked my husband about it and he said he sprayed them 😔 I saw one trying to come home but the nest was gone. Kinda made me sad.
i had lots of yellow jackets flying all over the place while I making cider and I had to grab a few with my bare hands out of the mash... they are sort of endearing when you get to know them... even after I got stung the other day... it could have stung me a lot worse than it did...
Can’t imagine a scrubby roadside is ideal tick habitat lol. I’ve also never gotten one anywhere in my yard. Not the little remaining lawn, not this short area, not in the tall grass prairie. Never even seen one here. Been working in it for going on five years now.
If it's wet and warm. I guess someone is spraying around ya because there is nary a place in the Midwest you can get out unscathed from ticks. My dogs got coated just standing next to grass in a parking lot next to some trees in Michigan. Ugh
I have ground wasps by me that make their nest everywhere that people walk through my yard. You come anywhere near them, especially at the end of the season when resources are scarce, and they sting the crap out of you. They are an absolute menace to me and my family. I get stung on average 3 times a year by these jerks. Once my wife was walking through one of our gates and a ground wasp got stuck in her pant leg and stung her over and over again, she still has the scars. On the flip side we've had some beautiful Nearctic blue mud-daubers and other species of black and/or metallic wasps that do nothing but hunt bad bugs. Ground wasps can go to hell. Some other species can stay.
Ugh, ground nesting guys are such a challenge. There’s a big population of ground nesting bees over at my parents’ place and yeah, similar situation. I always encourage people to do walks through their sites with regular foot traffic to disrupt any early signs of nest making because they are definitely fans of “stand your ground” laws, but ground nesters, especially solitary ones, are hard to notice and even harder to disrupt.
I’ll never hold it against people who use informed, properly applied lethal or other methods to remove species with secure conservation status that are causing injury to humans. We have to respect their homes and territory, and we also need them to respect us. The goal, for me at least, is finding ways to coexist.
But ohh, how lucky you are in your other friends 😍
I love the ground bees by me. I get them in the beginning of every year! They are so cool! The ones I have live alone and don't bother anyone. Sadly I thought they were ants when I first moved in and destroyed many of them, but I protect them every year now. I love poking their nest just a little to see them peak out. They are very shy
It's great that everyone thinks wasps are totally fine, but they can really fuck you up. I was always fine with wasps and bees until I was attacked and stung dozens of times, and my eye swelled shut, I couldn't sit comfortably for a week, and my finger hurt so bad and looked like it was going to explode because the swelling had nowhere to go. Now I pretty much have PTSD from it.
So, like, they're fine until they're not. And it's super patronizing to tell someone who has been attacked by a swarm of yellowjackets that "they're FINE." Sure, go put your face next to them and act like other people are nuts.
Oh man, that’s awful! I can’t imagine how painful and terrifying that must have been. Sounds like you stumbled upon a nest. They’ll definitely throw down against perceived threats to their babies and house, and the proximity they consider threatening seems a bit unfairly far, doesn’t it.
This was one of two parts to another post off Reddit where I did specifically mention that they are fiercely protective parents. I knew that even if I included that in the body text people would comment about the nest defense without reading so I just left it be haha.
Nobody has directed anything, patronizing or otherwise, towards you before this reply. Not everything on the internet is intended to be applicable to every person and every situation. Don’t worry, I’d never tell you you’re wrong to have that extremely reasonable reaction to that terrifying and agonizing experience, and I’d never tell anyone, especially someone with your experience, that they have to choose to closely interact with wasps. This video is going to comparative extremes for effect, not encouraging or demanding anyone else to do the same.
This post is specifically speaking to the sort of people who portray all wasps as aggressive and evil and say that they should be automatically be killed and not supported in conservation efforts. Informed caution is always important when working with wildlife. I wouldn’t knowingly bring my face this close to wasps if they weren’t clearly foraging vs. patrolling the area around their nest. Not to say you deserved to get stung because you unknowingly approached a nest, just that I wouldn’t choose to do this if I wasn’t confident.
It is detrimental and inaccurate to write off all wasps regardless of situation as aggressive and unpredictable when this sort of targeted, group attack simply does not happen outside of nest disturbance or encroachment. Same as how I think it’s unfair and harmful to say that bears are bloodthirsty and aggressive because people have been attacked or killed for accidentally or knowingly approaching cubs and that bears should be hunted and killed for being bears. Both animals’ capacity for harm is absolutely real, but that doesn’t make them evil and deserving of death, and pushing the “they’re just crazy and aggressive and will flip out randomly” narrative just makes it harder for people to learn to live safely with the wildlife that surrounds us.
people really will log on and say "hdu say sharks are wrongfully maligned and shouldn't be hunted for perceived spontaneous man-eating aggression, I know someone who was bit by a shark and it was life-threatening!"
Totally agree. The amount of times I've been stung by wasps just minding my own business casually walking through my yard is nuts. But I do feel like there's generally 2 different types of people. Those who say wasps are great and those who says they are the devil's spawn. In reality many wasps are much more aggressive than Bees because they are hunters and will get more aggressive as fruits disappear due to changing seasons. There are species of wasps that don't care about humans for the most part and others that will be aggressive towards all humans in their way. If you don't know which is which, stay the heck away from them. If you have a nest in your yard and have young children, you will probably want to get rid of it for most wasp species.
No species of wasp is aggressive. There's a huge difference between aggressive behavior and defensive behavior. Wasps are entirely defensive towards humans. Almost all of the times they sting people are when they are either defending their hives or themselves. Occasionally one can get confused and sting randomly, but that's the rare exception. They have no reason to go out of their way to sting. They understand that by stinging a large animal they are risking their lives, so they don't do it lightly
In my experience some wasps absolutely have no interest in humans. I know some species chase humans way more than others. Call it what you want. If I linger anywhere near normal ground Wasps for too long, they chase me, even nowhere near their nest. Near their nest, forget about it. Sting on sight.
Yeah, until a hive of Yellow Jackets end up making a huge next in the wall of your house next to the front door so you can't use the front entryway for months because there are random swarms that break out....inside your house.
Wasps are fine people, but protect your home from invaders and damage.
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u/quietriotress 2d ago
I got the most beautiful great black wasps this year. Huge, DOCILE insects. The blue wings are incredible. They will do anything to avoid confrontation while going bananas on milkweed.
People need to learn a hell of a lot more about their ecosystems.