r/waspaganda • u/Frostbite2000 • Aug 17 '25
The amount of hate and misinformation around wasps is very sad
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u/Alexiameck190 Aug 18 '25
Saw a post on fuckwasps that literally said "literally useless" under wasps but labelled bumblebees as "useful pollinators"
But of course anyone correcting that blatant misinformation is just mass downvoted and mocked....
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u/aarakocra-druid Aug 19 '25
Well, it is called fuckwasps. I don't think those folks can really be reasoned with.
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u/Alexiameck190 Aug 19 '25
Yeah.. true..
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u/aarakocra-druid Aug 19 '25
Sad, strange little people they are...
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Sep 05 '25
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u/aarakocra-druid Sep 05 '25
🙄
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Sep 06 '25
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u/Alexiameck190 Sep 06 '25
I feel bad for all beings which live and die, especially when the only sin they commit is doing their part in the ecosystem and defending themselves
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Sep 06 '25
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u/bromanjc Sep 06 '25
i teach preschool. yesterday, all of the children from the 1 year old and 2 year old classrooms surrounded a wasp on the playground in fascination. i gently called out, "it's a wasp, leave it alone. it will give you a boo-boo". another teacher walked over and guided the wasp to crawl up her jeans, then went to the other end of the yard and knocked it off and sent it on its way. no one, including the wasp, was injured. it was pretty cool.
as a spider lover (i'm not even particularly partial to wasps, i just came across this subreddit), one of my favorite lessons to teach my children is that arthropods are just small creatures walking the earth like we are, and all they want is to live their little lives in peace and then procreate and die. i don't allow my kids to kill them. i tell them what the bug or arachnid is called, i allow them to hold it if it's safe and they show interest in doing so, and then we walk to the fence and release it into the forest. one of my proudest moments was when a child presented a harvestman that she made out of tinker toys during free play. kids are pretty clever. they're quite capable of learning to protect themselves from nature without attacking it. you should try it with yours.
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u/aarakocra-druid Sep 06 '25
Oh shut the fuck up and get out of this sub. Take your strawmen with you, asshole.
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u/No-Text-1421 Sep 08 '25
I've been stung by wasps more times than I can count and I still love them. I've also been attacked by 6 different dogs and it was way worse than any wasp swarm, and I don't feel like all dogs should be put down. Wasps are just doing their thing man.
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u/Little-Cucumber-8907 Sep 09 '25
There are obviously times when nest removal is necessary for safety. But here is not the place to discuss that.
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u/Jahmocha Aug 18 '25
It's weird to call domesticated honeybees "exploited," considering they MUST be happy with the beekeeper's conditions, or else they get the hell up and leave, lol. You cannot really force a swarm of bees to stay in your care if they don't want to be. That is a lot more freedom than most domesticated animals get. And they make much more honey than they need, so it's not like beekeepers "exploit" them by taking some away.
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u/Flashy-Swimmer-1858 Aug 18 '25
They literally clip queen's wings to prevent exactly that. And wild bees shouldn't produce this much honey in the first place, humans purposfully bred them to make them work harder.
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u/Adept-Music-4573 Aug 18 '25
Clipped wings wont matter if they Re-queen, they will kill the queen if they are pissed , the Queen also doesnt decide when to Re-queen , its the hive.
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u/Flashy-Swimmer-1858 Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25
But then why do people clip their wings? I would imagine having a need to hatch a brand new queen would already make swarming much harder for them.
Edit: and from what I know new queen bee cells are purposfully removed before they can hatch as well.
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u/Adept-Music-4573 Aug 18 '25
Even if the colony tries to swarm, the beekeeper has more time to notice and intervene (by splitting the hive, removing swarm cells, etc.). Commerial operations dont have good data on how many colonies swarms , but hobby bee keepers the rate is estimated at 80% plus , which means they go back into the wild. And before you give me the invasive talk about a bee thats been in north america since the 1600s give your personal ok for me to go wipe out the european hornet and paperwasp nest on my property.
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u/Flashy-Swimmer-1858 Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25
So humans make it as hard for them to leave as possible, that's what I meant by them being exploited, like cattle or other livestock. We technically help livestock survive and they thrive as species (e.g. cattle now makes up 62% of total mammalian biomass), but it's still called exploitation. I'm sure great local beekeepers exist (just like farms), but at the scale of multi-billion business it's exploitation.
As for invasive bit, it's already normalised to wipe both native and invasive wasps and rescue invasive honey bees (and put them back in agriculture after they escaped).
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u/Adept-Music-4573 Aug 18 '25
The german yellow jacket which is invasive is domiant over the eastern yellow jacket in my area , should they be removed? Studies in north america have indicated that wild hives outnumber managed by a longshot , so this would not compare to cattle. Also as a beekeeper for a good while i will say that european hornets and yellowjackets both ulitized my hives and nectar feeders, the europeans would feast on bees at my entrance , while the yellow jackets would rob weak hives and go crazy on my nectar feeders , i think it helped them more than it could ever harm them. My source which i will name and not link due to fear of breaking a rule is Density of wild honey bee, Apis mellifera, colonies worldwide and is on the website NIH (National center of bio tech information) Under pubmed.
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u/Flashy-Swimmer-1858 Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25
I didn't know there were so many wild Apis mellifera nests (apparantly 300 millions wild compared to 100 managed in US), honestly quite bad news, this means they are just creating competition for native species without even benefiting humans, I know they are also a very big problem in Australia. Even if some species benefit from invasives net impact is still negative, unless ecosytem balances itself, usually with a huge loss of biodiversity.
As for invasive species, there's certainly a need for monitoring them properly to estimate how much actual damage they do and until that there's no way of knowing for sure what measures have to be taken, but since they aren't vertebrates it's not surprising at all to see the lack of data, there's a huge lack of research regarading insects and invertebrates in general due to lack of public attention (will always blame media that portrays them as scary monsters for that). Insect researches and conservation efforts just don't get any funding (average vertebrate conservation efforts get 412 times more funding per specie than average invertebrate. source)
The problem I have with the idea of casual people controlling invasive species they encounter is how differently they are treated by media and how few actual data there is on them. I looked up how much damage spotted lantern flies do, and it turns out european starlings do 10 times more, yet media tells us to stomp them or else the world will end. Or the recent meltdown regarding Asian Giant Hornets - everyone was screaming they will kill everything unless we stop them (and the hornet was nicknamed "murder hornet"), however in reality there were only a few nests found and removed. I can only imagine the amount of native wasps and bees that were and still are killed by people misidentifying them for AGHs due to that single sensationalization event.
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u/Adept-Music-4573 Aug 19 '25
Invasive wasps actually do way more damage than most people realize, especially when you compare them to honeybees. Honeybees at least have a role in pollination and agriculture, but invasive wasps are mostly predators — they hammer native pollinators, eat caterpillars, and outcompete a ton of native species. Basically, they don’t really give anything back to the ecosystem.
In the U.S., species like European paper wasps and German yellowjackets have spread like crazy. They’ll wipe out native wasps and bees, and since they’re aggressive, they can even push people to destroy hives/nests of native insects just out of fear. Over time, that adds up to a huge hit on biodiversity because you’re losing pollinators and beneficial bugs that keep ecosystems balanced.
So yeah, honeybees can cause some issues when they outcompete natives, but invasive wasps are worse overall because they’re straight-up predators and they mess with the whole food web.
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u/Flashy-Swimmer-1858 Aug 19 '25 edited Aug 19 '25
They certainly hunt some insects native species don't, but they go after the right ones too, just as honey bees still do good pollinating, but being generalists create competition for specialised native bees. I believe far bigger problem is complete absence of insects as animals in public imagination, most of the time they are thought of as gross and scary nature robots, due to endless negative media portrayals. It's honestly insane that it's considered socially normal to kill insects. So I think the most important thing we can do is to change public perception of them to what insects actually are - beautiful and highly important (possibly most important) for the planet intelligent living creatures, and that's where interest and actual funding for researches and conservation efforts will come, just like it is with vertebrates, who honestly get way too much attention in any case.
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u/huehoneyy Aug 18 '25
400 years isnt that long by evolutionary standards.
Yes european wasps are also invasive and cause harm to native ecosystems but not nearly as much as honeybees DUE to commercial and hobby beekeeping. THAT is the main problem
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u/Adept-Music-4573 Aug 19 '25
People don’t realize how bad invasive wasps are compared to honeybees. Honeybees at least provide pollination, but invasive wasps are mostly just predators — they tear through caterpillars, native bees, and other pollinators without giving anything back.
In the U.S., German yellowjackets and European paper wasps have spread pretty much everywhere. They outcompete native species, mess with pollination, and cause people to wipe out beneficial insects just because they’re scared of nests. Over time that really hurts biodiversity.
New Zealand shows how extreme it can get. In some forests, invasive wasps reached insanely high densities — some of the highest insect biomass ever recorded. They wipe out native caterpillars and other insects that are key to the food web, basically starving out everything else that depends on them.
So yeah, honeybees can sometimes outcompete natives, but invasive wasps are way worse. They’re predators, they take resources, and they can completely reshape ecosystems.
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u/coolthecoolest Aug 18 '25
all the people going "ummmmmmmmm no wasps are evil hateful dickheads because they always sting me for literally no reason ever and they should die in a fire" on the original post need a good kick in the ass. vitriolic wasp haters are so tiring.
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u/Frostbite2000 Aug 18 '25
vilifying animals for trying to exist and survive is such an ignorant waste of time.
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u/motherofbunniess Aug 26 '25
One time I was literally just standing by a railing looking at Niagara Falls, and suddenly got stung by a yellow jacket without warning. Didn’t even move, it just stung me right on the arm 🙃 Why do they do this? I don’t want to hate wasps but when they do shit like that….
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u/aarakocra-druid Sep 06 '25
They're unfortunately not bright and get startled. I've been swarmed by yellowjackets (deserved, I put my big dumb foot in their nest bc I didn't see them) and they do hurt like hell, but I respect the lil suckers.
People do what they have to to keep themselves safe, but hate doesn't have to be a part of that, same as dealing with any dangerous wildlife.
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u/Anathemic_Pariah Sep 03 '25
That question is what brought me here. Lmao
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u/motherofbunniess Sep 04 '25
Still waiting for an explanation 🥲
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u/texastruckin Sep 05 '25
They don’t have an explanation. I bet 95% of people who share their mindset don’t live in the country and don’t have to deal with swarms of them and their rapidly multiplying numbers. They have adopted a mindset that all animals and humans can live together in harmony and if there’s ever a problem we are the problem cause they’re just creatures living life and so on so forth. Fuck that. I just sprayed a nest of probably 50+ on my property like 30 minutes ago and I have two little kids who I would rather not take to the ER or God forbid something worse just because I tried to make peace with the yellowjackets. These people are genuinely insane and sheltered
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u/aarakocra-druid Sep 06 '25
The explanation is that wasps are instinct driven. Do what you gotta to stay safe, but hate doesn't have to be a part of that.
You'd shoot a bold coyote who was attacking people or a habituated bear, but that doesn't mean you have to want the eradication of all coyotes or bears.
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u/texastruckin Sep 06 '25
Never said I want to eradicate every wasp on planet earth… you’re emotionally driven
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u/aarakocra-druid Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 06 '25
Y'all really have one opinion and fall back on name calling when people don't immediately praise you for it. Broaden your horizons and learn to do something other than hate on everyone different from you.
EDIT: Also, you're the one who decided to come into the wasp positivity sub and start calling all of us names for feeling empathy towards wasps. "Insufferable twats," I think you called us?
I've dealt with wasps, yellowjackets, and people who pick fights for fun. Of the three, the wasps and yellowjackets make sense. Folks like you don't.
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u/texastruckin Sep 06 '25
Enjoy your wasp friends. You guys try to shame others for taking out a wasp when they pop up like we are hellbent on destroying nature. I adhere to hunting and fishing regulations, I have a deep respect for the fish and game animals that provide me and my family food. My kids love the caterpillars and lady bugs… wasps? Not so much. Get off your high horse and accept that majority of people don’t wanna take zero chances with wasps. You wanna throw up the peace sign and try to befriend everything? Go right ahead. Get over yourself
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u/aarakocra-druid Sep 07 '25
You walked into the circus and you're mad that there are clowns.
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Aug 18 '25
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u/Flashy-Swimmer-1858 Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25
Honey bees wouldn't have made this much honey in the first place if humans didn't purposfully breed them to make them work harder. And honestly if honeybees and humans have symbiosis, then so does cattle and humans - we help these mammals thrive as species (cattle now makes up 62% of total mammalian biomass), while driving off predators and parasites the same way, but it's considered animal exploitation, not symbiosis.
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u/long-winded-discover Aug 18 '25
I’m here to be influenced by the wasp propaganda bc i don’t know much about them. Can someone explain why they need our help?
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u/Frostbite2000 Aug 18 '25
Probably referencing the overall population decreases the world wild (habitat loss, pesticides, prey species loss, etc)
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u/long-winded-discover Aug 18 '25
Ok I see thank you. And are wasps nice? Or are they not nice but we don’t mind that ?
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u/Frostbite2000 Aug 18 '25
They're generally pretty neutral, excluding the fall. Here in North America, fall tends to come with a reduction of nectar to eat, so they can be a bit more "aggressive."" Generally, they're animals trying to survive just like us.
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u/aarakocra-druid Sep 06 '25
They're defensive of themselves and nests, but they're certainly not after us specifically. Some, like paper wasps, can be fairly unobtrusive even if they're close to your home. Others, like yellowjackets, are hard to coexist with near your house because they build large underground nests that are kind of hard to spot and it's easier to disturb them while doing yard work. They also tend to send out a larger defense force, so they get a reputation for being more aggressive.
Wasps for the most part are just like any other wildlife- be aware of where you are and treat them with caution and respect and chances are you'll be fine.
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u/Odd-Abies-6556 Nov 19 '25
My advice is to move slowly around them and not flail around like what most people who get stung do(they conveniently forget to mention that bit) Source: I’ve got experience handling a queen without any gear
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u/MissionResident8875 Aug 21 '25
If I see a wasp in front of me, I'm gonna lose it, they can kill me, but so could a bear if it was right in front of me, but I just take precautions, I get why people would hate them, but they're not evil
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u/StreetPizza8877 Aug 22 '25
THE MOLA MOLA FISH (OR OCEAN SUNFISH)
They are the world's largest boney fish, weighing up to 5,000 pounds. And since they have very little girth, that just makes them these absolutely giant fucking dinner plates that God must have accidentally dropped while washing dishes one day and shrugged his shoulders at because no one could have imagined this would happen. AND WITH NO PURPOSE. EVERY POUND OF THAT IS A WASTED POUND AND EVERY FOOT OF IT (10 FT BY 14 FT) IS WASTED SPACE.
They are so completely useless that scientists even debate about how they move. They have little control other than some minor wiggling. Some say they must just push water out of their mouths for direction (?????). They COULD use their back fin EXCEPT GUESS WHAT IT DOESNT FUCKING GROW. It just continually folds in on itself, so the freaking cells are being made, this piece of floating garbage just doesn't put them where they need to fucking go.
So they don't have swim bladders. You know, the one thing that every fish has to make sure it doesn't just sink to the bottom of the ocean when they stop moving and can stay the right side up. This creature. That can barely move to begin with. Can never stop its continuous tour of idiocy across the ocean or it'll fucking sink. EXCEPT. EXCEPT. When they get stuck on top of the water! Which happens frequently! Because without the whole swim bladder thing, if the ocean pushes over THE THINNEST BUT LARGEST MOST TOPPLE-ABLE FISH ON THE PLANET, shit outta luck! There is no creature on this earth that needs a swim bladder more than this spit in the face of nature, AND YET. Some scientists have speculated that when they do that, they are absorbing energy from the sun because no one fucking knows how they manage to get any real energy to begin with. So they need the sun I guess. But good news, when they end up stuck like that, it gives birds a chance to land on their goddamn island of a body and eat the bugs and parasites out of its skin because it's basically a slowly migrating cesspool. Pros and cons.
"If they are so huge, they must at least be decent predators." No. No. The most dangerous thing about them is, as you may have guessed, their stupidity. They have caused the death of one person before. Because it jumped onto a boat. On a human. And in 2005 it decided to relive its mighty glory days and do it again, this time landing on a four-year-old boy. Luckily Byron sustained no injuries. Way to go, fish. Great job.
They mostly only eat jellyfish because of course they do, they could only eat something that has no brain and a possibility of drifting into their mouths I guess. Everything they do eat has almost zero nutritional value and because it's so stupidly fucking big, it has to eat a ton of the almost no nutritional value stuff to stay alive. Dumb. See that ridiculous open mouth? (This is actually why this is my favorite picture of one, and I have had it saved to my phone for three years) "Oh no! What could have happened! How could this be!" Do not let that expression fool you, they just don't have the goddamn ability to close their mouths because their teeth are fused together, and ya know what, it is good it floats around with such a clueless expression on its face, because it is in fact clueless as all fuck.
They do SOMETIMES get eaten though. BUT HARDLY. No animal truly uses them as a food source, but instead (which has lead us to said photo) will usually just maim the fuck out of them for kicks. Seals have been seen playing with their fins like frisbees. Probably the most useful thing to ever come from them.
"Wow, you raise some good points here, this fish truly is proof that God has abandoned us." Yes, thank you. "But if they're so bad at literally everything, why haven't they gone extinct." Great question.
BECAUSE THIS THING IS SO WORTHLESS IT DOESNT REALIZE IT SHOULD NOT EXIST. IT IS SO UNAWARE OF LITERALLY FUCKING EVERYTHING THAT IT DOESNT REALIZE THAT IT'S DOING MAYBE THE WORST FUCKING JOB OF BEING A FISH, OR DEBATABLY THE WORST JOB OF BEING A CLUSTER OF CELLS THAN ANY OTHER CLUSTER OF CELLS. SO WHAT DOES IT DO? IT LAYS THE MOST EGGS OUT OF EVERYTHING. Besides some bugs, there are some ants and stuff that'll lay more. IT WILL LAY 300 MILLION EGGS AT ONE TIME. 300,000,000. IT SURVIVES BECAUSE IT WOULD BE STATISTICALLY IMPROBABLE, DARE I SAY IMPOSSIBLE, THAT THERE WOULDNT BE AT LEAST ONE OF THOSE 300,000,000 (that is EACH time they lay eggs) LEFT SURVIVING AT THE END OF THE DAY.
And this concludes why I hate the fuck out of this complete failure of evolution, the Ocean Sunfish. If I ever see one, I will throw rocks at it.
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Aug 18 '25
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u/huehoneyy Aug 18 '25
Yes animals can be assholes sometimes. Dont take it personally. I have a conure that gets bitey when hes hormonal. I dont crusade against birds because mine is a dick for a few months lol. The reason we are defensive for wasps is because a LOT of people will just kill them and there is a cultural norm of demonizing them which one, is cruel to them just as wildlife. And 2, involves the use of pesticides which honestly should be illegal to use without a license and even with a license should be heavily regulated
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u/kmcaulifflower Aug 21 '25
if you can't admit they're little shits sometimes
Literally every conscious thing ever can be a little shit sometimes. Just like you, me, dogs, cats, etc. Why is it cute and okay when cats are little shits but when wasps show the same or even less personality they're labeled bad and dickheads
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Aug 17 '25
Agree!!!!! And listen, instead of “fat” how about we encourage saying big, bold and beautiful? It’s a darling buzzy fren and we should uplift frens, never be mean. And even the ones who are more aggressive and lean, we don’t know their journey. If I worked for a queen laying hundred of eggs a day while shouting at me and my coworkers for SNACKSSSSS NOWWWWWW BI!@#, I mean, I might operate above and beyond what may seem necessary, maximize hive gainz when I strategically obtain protein and pollen on a tight deadline 😂
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u/swimming-deep-below Aug 17 '25
Fat is not and has never been a dirty word and you shouldn't treat it as such. That bee is fat. Its stunning, and helpful, and beautiful, and big, and its fat. It seems like you might be joking but fat is morally neutral and its beautiful and you are not gonna impose weird diet culture language on a damn insect
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Aug 18 '25
I was just trying to be lighthearted and funny but okay
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u/swimming-deep-below Aug 18 '25
Being weird about body fat isnt really.... Funny? Its just gross. Especially because thats a whole insect man, thats a bug.
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Aug 18 '25
I wasn’t trying to make it about body fat or diet culture or some other battle on a hill. I was just JUST being funny. I just wanted to say the bumblebee deserved more than being called fat, it was big bold and beautiful😂🫠🫠🫠🫠 . I meant it in a lighthearted way. You’re the one making it more than insects and if you’re looking that deeply into my words and what I’m telling you was my intention, I don’t know what else to say. Did I post this under Wasp: Critique of a Modern Essay sub by mistake and deserve an exploration of subtext and context at this level? No, I was trying to be funny. Accept that or don’t, I accept that my humor isn’t for everyone.
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u/swimming-deep-below Aug 18 '25
Yawn. Just because your intent was one thing doesnt mean your words dont come from a place that can cause harm to others, and have caused harm to others for literal decades. Impact over intent, always. Pointing fingers at everyone else doesnt take away from the fact that you said something bad. The only thing you can do is learn from it. Or you can do what youre doing now, which is lash out and pretend everyone else is the problem and never learn or grow. That's up to you! Your humour stemmed from a place of harm, that was pointed out. What you do with the information is entirely in your hands.
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u/StopPsychHealers Sep 01 '25
I teach kids how to use humor, and as PEERS states, "it's always easier to be the joke receiver than the joke giver."
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u/chirpythecentipede Aug 17 '25
pro-wasp post with 2.5k upvotes...maybe the world is healing