OP:
Credits to LittleFuzzyWasp
Shilling for big waspa. I shoulda known.
Bees are like carpenters, they carry a knife but you're not worried they might stab you for no reason.
Wasps are like meth heads.
They're like meth head gang members that also call their gang to attack you after they do. That's what terrifies me of them.
you leave them alone and they'll leave you alone.
Nah thats bees. Wasps are angry bastards who will attack with no provocation.
Allow me to introduce giant Asian hornets who will just stab you for being in their flight path.
That's valid until autumn, when days get shorter and colder...suddenly the old arrangement is nullified.
Shitty wasps like Yellow Jackets give almost all the other wasps a bad reputation. Yellow Jackets are mean and spiteful, even when they aren't protecting their nest.
Most other eusocial wasps are pretty docile, unless you mess with their nest or really go out of your way to harass them.
In many parts of the world, like my own, there are far more species of solitary wasps than eusocial wasps. Solitary wasps are nearly all non-aggressive, they don't have communal nests to defend, and they basically don't have time to fuck around with stinging shit because they are too busy building a chamber for their eggs, collecting food for their upcoming progeny, and trying to stay fed and hydrated while doing it.
So what I'm getting at is that most wasps I encounter on a regular basis are pretty chill. Really, this goes for bees as well. Most of the ones I see on a regular basis are solitary types and non-aggressive. The most aggressive bees I tend to encounter are male carpenter bees. They are highly territorial and they'll even buzz a human to scare them off. However, there's no threat. Male bees and wasps cannot sting, they do not even have stingers.
The most aggressive bees I tend to encounter are male carpenter bees. They are highly territorial and they'll even buzz a human to scare them off. However, there's no threat.
No threat of stinging, anyway. They will absolutely wreak havoc on a wood framed house.
bzzzzbzzzBZZZZZ
Yes, sir, I see you. I see your little pile of sawdust on the fence, too. No, I'm not going to screw with it. I'm just installing this gate latch."
bzzzbzbbzbbzbzbzbzbzzzzz
This would go a lot faster if I didn't have to keep ducking.
BZZZZZZ
Okay, I'm done, jeez.
BZZZZZzzzbzzzzbzzzz
...aaaaand under the fascia board it goes. Shit.
We have paper wasps around here. They bump you before they sting you. Like “hey bump we got a nest here bump stay away bump” I’ve only been stung when I was shaking something out next to a nest and they saw it as aggressive + too close.
Yep, lots of bees and wasps do this because they don't actually want to sting defensively if it can be avoided, so they are merely trying to intimidate a potential threat. Unfortunately, it's very common for people to panic and behave erratically in response, and that tends to make the critters feel like they are in danger, so they do end up stinging. It basically becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Bees, wasps, ok, got it.
But mosquitoes? I'be yet to find a biologist that would advocate for preservation of mosquitos. Kill them with fire.
That thing we do where we dump genetically modified mosquitoes into an area to make sterile mosquitoes and kill them off is awesome because the gene dies out after a few years. It'd essentially a temporary and mild extinction we can do. It's amazing because we don't even need to decide if it's correct to kill off a species.
It’s also worth noting that this technique has been used primarily in urban areas with introduced species of mosquitoes. It would have different effects if done in wild ecosystems on native species.
Mosquitos are one of the most prolific pollinators, I think you’d find most biologists would tell you this.
Nah that's just female mosquitoes. Male mosquitoes are pollinators. Unfortunately, male mosquitoes need female mosquitoes.
Ok, fine, educate me, what do wasps contribute to the environment?
People who post shit like this are being intentionally obtuse and provocative. "Wasp" is a big tent classification, and what everyone else thinks of are a few specific creatures.
A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant;
Vast majority of things that are "wasps" don't bite/sting and many are important pollinators.
The bitey stingy ones? Fuck em.
As someone who has a live and let live attitude towards most insects....when I got swarmed by ground wasps while weeding out my garden I had no mercy for them after. Aggressive doesn't even describe how pissed they get.
It was the first time I didn't feel bad about using insecticide. So yeah, the hyper aggressive, stinging ones can fuck right off.
They eat the things that eat the things you eat.
(e.g. aphids, caterpillars and mfcking thrips and leaf miners)
PS: ok just one more: if bees are the plant matchmakers, wasps are broad spectrum pest exterminators.
Yeah… well the also eat my peaches and plums. So they eat my food, and that just ain’t cool. On top of that they set up shop by my front door and then sting me for just walking into MY house where I was letting them make a little room of their own. Not no more. Them bitchass mfers are back in hell where they belong, and my world is much better since I opened that portal for them.
Many wasp species, while not considered pollinators, still transport pollen and pollinate plants. Others hunt pest insects. There are also many species that are vital as prey for birds
Figs.
That's only some types of figs and one type of tiny wasp. Most figs we eat are virgin fruit.
They're pollinators. A popular example is figs but you'll see them in flowers just like bees.
Of course nature doesn't owe us safety. That's why it's up to us to ensure our own safety by killing it with fire.
More wasp propaganda. Nature does not owe me safety. My house siding is NOT NATURE. I WILL REVEL IN THEIR DEATH THROES.
What about ticks?
Yeah, fuck ticks and wasps
No, wasps are fine and help deal with invasive species, you just have to not bother them. Ticks on the other hand are bad for everyone involved and deserve to be dropped into a tornado of bleach. If that seems weirdly specific, it's because some scientists did that, then wrote a paper encouraging others to drop ticks into bleach tornadoes.
I will not stand for this Pro wasp propaganda!
Stupid question.
Could a wasp be bred/altered to not have a sting, or at best not have a sting that can penetrate human skin? It's akin to domestication, but we selectively breed wasps to not be such cunts.
You're thinking of bees. Also iirc wasps used to be the only way to pollinate certain figs, and considering the popularity of figs through history, someone probably attempted this.
As someone who works outside several days in an area with multiple species of wasps, including murder hornets, that would be fantastic. I've not been stung yet, but it's only a matter of time and I might be allergic (I'm allergic to bees, or at least used to be, but I only had light swelling from a paper wasp. Still, I'd rather not find out).
Speaking of, if we could make all my local snakes non-venomous, I would be delighted.
I stopped being scared of wasps after learning how to read their body language. Quiet buzzing and relaxed wings = calm, whereas loud buzzing and raised wings = mad. Plus, as long as you're not allergic, a sting is just temporary pain, which definitely isn't worth taking their life. Wasps are literally just animals, and we should be kind to them.
listen, i didn't ask to be born with a functional aversion to isopods and insects in general, ok.
I didn't want this shit, but i got it anyway.
They didn't want you either, but here you are.
im pretty sure the insects don't care, they keep showing up in my room and i keep killing them.
Pest control guy killed the wasps on my balcony without asking :/ I don't even use the balcony, they were just chillin. Now theres just a pile of corpses
I have to hide from the windows when pest control comes. I don't wanna know what they do. I need to talk to my wife about it, I would've cancelled it otherwise.
Cordylobia anthropophaga can go die in a fire.
I'm torn by spider wasps. I get irrationally angry when I see one of my wolf spider buddies getting dragged across the yard to their death.
That's a sign of a healthy ecosystem. Predators are more likely to be keystone species. Spider wasps are predating on predators. You've got enough spiders to keep the bugs in control and wasps to take care of the extra spiders? I'm jealous!
Wait, if spider wasps hunt spiders, what do wolf spiders hunt?
Believe it or not, cats.
yeah, nature does not owe you safety, which is why i kill wasps on sight because I'm part of nature. get fucked, wasps, we all know you're just fascist bees.
I know they're important. I'm also afraid of them because some members of my family have had adverse reactions to stings from wasps. I would like wasps to live happy, happy lives far, far away from me.
I haven't killed a wasp in years. And that was only because it was building a nest inside my storm door just above eye level. Surprised the shit out of me because I barely saw the nest in the dark, struggled to change focus, and jumped back once I realized what I was seeing. Was not a fun encounter. It's like, buddy, nobody was gonna be happy with that arrangement.
I gotta kill a wasp nest soon (my bros, paper wasps) because they’re on the balcony and I’m trying to sell my house. Anyone know of a way to relocate them instead? No, I don’t have a bee suit. I feel bad too because I’ve seen a bunch of abandoned nests around the outside while cleaning my house, in perfectly acceptable places, but out in the open so they probably got prayed on and now they’re safe behind the fake shutters. 😭
I feel like humans are the only species whose extinction would not have a negative effect on Earth's ecosystem (quite possibly a positive one)
Aedes mosquitos serve no known ecological purpose. They are purely parasitic, are not unique pollinators (as in, any plant they do pollinate is also pollinated by other species), and do not make up a substantial portion of the diet of any species.
I would venture to say their extinction would have a positive effect on the Ecosystem by closing that transmission vector for the diseases they carry.
Fun fact: I've been doing a lot of reading about indigenous peoples, and one of the constant themes is how those peoples' traditional life ways were net positives for the environment. In California, for instance, Native American agriculture involved controlled burns every twenty years or so - keeping the soil fertile and encouraging a healthy mix of the "wild" species they cared for. They had been doing that for maybe 20,000 years. So when "environmentalists" in the early 20th century decided native lifeways were primitive and bad for the environment, and established enormous national parks where natives were no longer permitted to hunt or gather and fires were stamped out immediately, those national parks turned into tinder boxes - instead of the controlled burns the plants had evolved to take advantage of, we ended up with decades of fuel building up in the undergrowth, turning into massive uncontrolled burns that killed everything, and then invasive species rolled up and finished off the native plants.
"But untouched pristine wilderness"... No. That never existed. That's a racist trope spread by white colonists who wanted to think of Native Americans as enemies of nature in order to justify genocide. It's the opposite of the noble savage myth and equally racist. Fuck John Muir.
Over and over again, when you compare areas where indigenous people had lived in their traditional lifeways to areas where the people were killed or exiled but the environment was left untouched, the areas where humans were genocided have less species diversity, less fertility, and less healthy environments overall.
And if we, 21st century humanity, can use our science and technology to rediscover the old knowledge, we can take up our previous role and manage the environment around us for the benefit of all. Hell, in a lot of environments we have a duty to do so - we brought the rabbits to Australia, who's going to get rid of them if not for us?
And all that rant is to say, humans aren't the problem. Capitalism is the problem. Greed is the problem. Humans have lived as beneficial parts of the environment for approximately 150,000 years and we can do so again.
Adam Smith stands to speak as the ship rocks with the waves.
"The creation of wealth is what matters. If an industrious businessman wants to use available resources to create goods which he can then sell in the market he should be applauded for producing something of value. No one should be allowed to stifle industry."
"But how can you not see what harm you are causing? By promoting this naked greed you endanger us all. Every day the planks of our ship grow thinner. And for what? So that some baron can collect more of our coin?"
"Tecumseh, you are a simple minded savage. The items for sale in the market today: toothpicks, wooden spoons, hair combs, if they didn't have more value in that form then nobody would pay for them. The planks, the mast, and the deck boards of the ship must all have less value than the products made from them. The market has decided it is so."
"This market is destroying the very foundation of our life. Even now the water is knee high in the bilge and rising faster than we can bail it out. We lived in harmony with the ship for years. But ever since you established the market your 'businessmen' have been tearing the ship apart. How can we continue to live if the ship is sinking?"
A loud crack as one of the spars snaps sending splinters raining down on the deck. Several well dressed passengers scramble to collect the pieces.
"You see, Tecumseh, even on a collapsing ship there is opportunity for profit. You can't deny the genius of the market. And if the ship starts to sink the market will substitute another, better ship, as soon as it is profitable."
"Sigh. Only when the last mast has snapped, the last plank has broken, and our ship is underwater will you realize that coin will not keep you afloat."
humans have invented capitalism therefore humans are bad for the ecosystem. In just a century, it surpassed whatever good we did in the past.
Adding to that, indigenous Brazilians in the Amazon Basin area effectively created and spread terra preta (dark earth), which is extremely fertile and have been doing that for several centuries, that's also a net positive for the environment
“But untouched pristine wilderness”…
i mean i think it would've existed before the population of america deforested shit tons of land for both lumber and construction, but idk, i just feel like there would probably be a lot more very large trees around the US if that hadn't happened, maybe i'm wrong tho.
also, tangentially related, we see similar things outside of these populations in science generally, for example airfoil and propeller design is starting to mimic whales more and more over time. Only just now we're discovering that. So it's probably just the 1900s science/social behaviorisms that were problematic, capitalism played a role, but at the end of the day capitalism just responds to the market, so.
get revenge by eating figs
Bugs are cool as long as they are spiders who exclusively eat other bugs. And pill bugs.
Blue-eyed ensign wasps are cute :3
Had one indoors the other day at work and someone noticed it and was bothered by its existence. I took a picture of it and the grabbed it to take it outside. Would have preferred to let it be, but worried others might hurt it :\
Is there a bee-ologist who can tell me if hornets are wasps, or are they their own thing?
The wasps around here have always been pretty chill around me, but I get wary around hornets.
So, first of all a bee-ologist can only help you marginally, as bees are in the same order as wasps, hornets and ants but relatively far removed from them. Hornets (genus vespa) and classic wasps (genus vespula) on the other hand share the same subfamily vespinae and are both considered wasps. This was a nice short dive into wikipedia. As I am a crystallographer any real entomologist can feel free to correct me.
My dad's not a bee-ologist. He's an apiarist(bee keeper). He is suuuuuper knowledgeable about wasps, hornets, and ants too because like me he's a fuckin nerd!
I have not a single thing other than that to add to the conversation! 🥳🥳🥳🥳
Paper wasps usually are fine unless you get too close. I opened up the old toolbox on my grandad's tractor (parked outside, lid slightly ajar) as a curious kid. I was greeted by angry buzzing followed swiftly by stinging.
I also have some on the outside of my carport where the roof overhangs a bit. I could harvest my peppers a couple meters below them without issue. Once I got a little close and one did the diving/swooping "sod off" manoeuvre, but otherwise never bothered me. Their nest got taken out by a typhoon a few days ago, however
I imagine a world without bees and wasps to look more like those in my dinosaur books.
If nature doesn't owe us safety, we don't owe it kindness either.
What in the giving tree is this bullshit?
it's kinda funny how the core issue of these posts is really just that people say "wasp" when they mean "hornet"
wasps are fine, most wasps are barely noticable and couldn't give less of a toss about our existence.
hornets are the terrible ones, especially the kinds that grow way way way way larger than they have any right of doing, at least craneflies have the common decency to be thin and seemingly incapable of guiding their flight.Polistes Dominula are just friendly neighbours who like to chill around you when you do stuff with water or food or like to "help" when you DIY. They also gather to cool down in shaded areas around noon. I've never seen the nest, maybe that's why they are so chill. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdzuoldCYHw
