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We’ve all had our wars with insects. Whether spiders, mosquitoes, flying ants, and especially spruce beetles, the struggle is real. But honey bees? No problem. Sure they sting. Not pleasant. But more typically, they are busy saving the world, literally. Essential to human survival, not only do our precious bees make honey for our glazed doughnuts, they also make protective wax for those round little cheeses we all like. Oh and they pollinate crops and flowers and trees which is basically everything we rely on for nourishment. Yes, the little bee, like a tiny hairy farmer in black and yellow overalls, is essential to our food production and our food economy. Food’s pretty cool to have, isn’t it? So yup, bees = good.
But what about those other bees? Yes, I’m referring to the bee’s aggressive relative, the ones I’m 108% sure are never invited over to any bee family reunion: wasps and hornets. AKA flying arses.
Sure, they resemble some sort of super-cool prototype for futuristic flying machines but they have one mode: hair trigger. And one emotional response to everything: WHAT? OH REALLY? MAKE ME! WANNA GO? WANNA GO? We all know at least one wasp or hornet who’s bragged on social media about
- ruining a BBQ.
- ruining some kid’s birthday party.
- ruining an outdoor wedding.
- ruining the outdoors.
- flying around the bar set up on the deck trying to steal drinks like, well, bar-flies (on steroids).
- constructing the only deceptively delicate paper mache art-pieces that (when suddenly encountered) induce terror.
- snorting bear-spray.
- killing a lady-bug.
- kidnapping caterpillars and feeding them to their young, live! (Not even kidding.)
- generally stealing happiness by causing everything in their path to wither.
But you know what else wasps and hornets do? They make a really sweet sound when you hit them with a badminton racket. There: now you have something I don’t recommend you try at least once this weekend. Wink.
6 comments:
We use wasp traps as much as possible. They seem to really go for Mountain Dew. Plus My Rare One has one of those zapper rackets which I regard as more trouble than they're worth, but she always did like the thrill of the hunt.
Ever heard about the Giant Asian Hornet? You might think regular hornets & wasps are bad but they're nothing compared to them. They're huge (as the name suggests) & they attack in groups. Also, they loving fleeing prey so running away will only get them more excited & they don't stop stinging until whatever-it-is they attacked is dead. That includes humans!
Ah. Yes. I recently read that they are polite enough to "bounce" off a person in warning. Then comes the seizure like arm waving before one realizes that running is probably the best idea.
I love bees...but I am NOT a fan of wasps...they kinda terrify me due to an incident with them as a child...
I love "like a tiny hairy farmer in black and yellow overalls" and the illustration just finishes me off :)
But yes, wasps are made of mean. Unfortunately.
@ghost Ha! Running is the best idea but as this post suggests, I don't have good ideas. :)
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