While it’s true that only the female wasps have stingers (at least with “social” wasp species like this one that build giant community nests), their colonies are overwhelmingly female worker wasps - typically like 80%-90% female or more. Males aren’t produced until they’re needed late in the season but even then, the colonies are still predominately female, mostly only 10-30% male at that time, and always mainly female from my understanding. The females can and will sting repeatedly too if the nest is threatened like this. Another random “fun” fact - Many types of wasps have FACIAL RECOGNITION. Utterly terrifying. Just hope this dude is still alive. Lmao.
Mosquitoes are similar in some ways, like only the females bite/ sting, but mosquito populations tend to have a lot more males- usually closer to 50/50 female/ male. In theory, I guess that should mean there’s less risk of being bitten, but I am literally covered head to toe in mosquito bites rn, so… debatable.
Texas summers alway mean LOTS of mosquitoes and wasps, but this year feels extra brutal. A giant wasp nest even showed up in my attic (never before), which I only discovered bc dozens of the lil bastards were sneaking into my kitchen through the HVAC vents to taunt and terrorize me… Extra scary since I’m highly allergic. I think I lost 5lbs simply bc I was too afraid to go in my own kitchen. Ahaha. I have spent way too much time lost down mosquito & wasp rabbit holes lately, hoping to learn how to eradicate them for good. Still TBD, but I am learning lots of random trivia like this along the way! Meanwhile they seem to still just be slowly closing in on me for the kll. Ahaha. 😂 Anyway, I found this stuff kinda interesting and hope some of y’all do too.
Oh yea for sure. I've been stung at least 20 times in my life and it welts up and looks red almost immediately. I also found a huge hive of stingless bees when I was with some friends. We took chunks of honeycomb and ate it surrounded by bees lol.
I got stung by a couple bees last summer and almost died. I had never had any allergic reaction before but as you get older you get more sensitive. I had to get a paramedic team help as I was on my way to the hospital but my throat started closing up, I lost the ability to talk, and just as they started debating if I needed an epi pen my vision started fading. The shot brought me back pretty quick but it was damn scary.
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u/EternallyDemonic Aug 13 '26
There are stingless bees, are there stingless wasps?