Asklemmy @lemmy.ml

1y ago

What is your opinion on wasps ?

75 comments

Short answer: Fuck them
Long answer: Too bad they're important for our ecosystem. But still, fuck them
- I'd advice against that.
- How important do you think they are? I hate mosquitoes but I think they are critical. Wasps on the otherhand don't seem to be a big part of the food chain but make life hell for most large animals.
  To be clear, I don't think wiping out any nuisance bug is good as the consequences typically accumulate down the food chain but some I suspect may have far less impact.
  
  Afaik, their most important role is pest control because they eat tons of other insects. They are also very important pollinators. IIrc, third most important after flies and wild bees(not honey bees).
  I hate them too, but they are a critical part of our ecosystem.

great for a healthy ecosystem
but keep the hell away from them

They're cool af. Look at those colours! And the ergonomics.
I leave water bowls for them during summer.
They're not exactly friendly but when you observe them enough you can judge if you're annoying them and should gtfo. Most of the time they just mind their own business.
- That's pretty dope.
  I just think many humans don't grasp the concept that we can also piss something else off and should gtfo out of their area.
  Especially since we make more and more parts of this planet our areas.
- I agree, I am scared shitless of wasps, but I’ve started looking at them and now I can a) see whether it actually is a wasp, not a funky bee or smart fly, that helps. Then indeed, leave them to their business and they will generally leave you aline as well. It’s also important which phase of their life it is, they generally get more aggressive later in the year.
  Still am scared shitless but I love them too <3
- Yes the colors are pretty amazing. The metallic coatings.
- Other than mosquitoes, wasps are the only other bug I know that will seek you out because they need protein and have the means to take it from you. Most other bugs will try and avoid you.
  They are doubly bad in that they can make life hell for larger wildlife. They are relentless and result in pain and irritation akin to torture. I see them on deer and horses often where they will focus on their ears with multiple wasps taking bites in the same location.
  I see the necessity of every bug in a ecosystem that evolved over millions of years but that is the one and only bug that I think has less impact IMO while really making a hard existence even more difficult. I do nothing to help them exsist.
  
  Several flies will seek you out to bite you. Horse flies, for example. Not to mention ticks & lice & mites & other parasites.

White, Anglo Saxon protestants are fine. I usually try to associate with atheists, agnostics, or the generally unchurched, but you do you, right?
- Always good to have diversity after all, and WASPs are part of that diversity! (Wait until they learn that, they’ll lose their minds!)

Proof that god doesn't exist. Proof that if I'm wrong and god does exist, he's a fucking asshole not worthy of any worship.
- God is whimsical, cruel, and all powerful. The core message isn’t worship but rather respect.
  
  Yeah no thanks, fuck that too

Yellowjackets are annoying, but I got a colony of 5-banded Wasps that conglomerate on my trees every late summer- hundreds of males just hanging out, showing off their sweet bods while the ladies fly by perusing selections for mating. They're chill AF and not a pain.
But I mean, there are over a hundred thousand wasp species, and Yellowjackets are what most people think of when you say "wasp", but as annoying as they are, don't let them color your opinions on the otherd

I don't much care for them. They build their nests on my home, and they sting.

The world is better off without them.

They are good, but get the fuck out of my face!

I hate them. I fucking hate them.

I would love them if they had a concept of personal space, or a survival instinct that told them not to get up in someone biggers face.
As I've aged, I've lost the ability to hear them too, so now they love to sneak up on me.

Fire

fuck em all

I've got a bunch of red wasps around my house, and they're assholes. They're okay most of the time, unless you get too close. Every so often, though, they will be aggressive as hell, attacking you if you're within maybe 20 feet.

I like them! They've got a great style and they're perfectly chill when people aren't trying to swat them. I always let them land on my hand so I can look at them.
You can shoo them away from food a few times and they'll generally just go elsewhere.
- Since I was stung three times out of nowhere, one time just by sitting around, not moving at all: Nope, the moment they try landing on me I freak out.
  
  Your approach is definitely a popular one, although I don't advise it.

wasps > mosquitos

I'm fine with them until they start building their home on my home. You will die a breathless death with my spray if you build on my house.

Wasps. Been around for a very long time. Important pollinator and pest control. So many different types of them all over from tiny ones to f-ing huge.
But why do you want to annoy me when I’m just trying to eat my picnic!! Just leave me alone!!! Fun fact bees are vegetarian wasps.

It depends on whether were talking about Wasps the insects or WASPs the acronym.
Either way not a fan, but I guess the insects are alright as long as they're not in my house.

If they get near me? Death to them.
Otherwise? Go enjoy that environment bro

They get an unfairly bad rap because some of them have the audacity to threaten humans right back. They're actually damn important species for all kinds of ecosystem processes that support other species less offensive to our sanitised, idealised view of nature.
- Some of them also have larvae that are genetically programmed to eat their hosts’ vital organs last, to ensure the food source doesn’t rot.
  It’s not precisely evil, but it’s close. It’s a deliberate, if not conscious, move by evolution to use consciousness as a meat preservative.
  
  Evolution does be like that. The parasitoid wasps are some of the most diverse and ecologically important types, actually, and they don't sting.
  To be clear, I think nature is overrated. I might have come across as a back-to-the-woods guy in that first comment but I'm not. I just don't think wasp hate in particular is motivated by anything wholesome or educated.
- I read that they are extremely near-sighted, which is why they like to inspect everything and everyone up close, giving the impression that they want to deliberately annoy you.
  But deliberate or not, I still want to eat in peace.
  Still though, fascinating creatures, I enjoy watching them as much as I enjoy watching any other insect bugger about.
  Like the hornets who hunt them.

I grew up in an area that had yellow jackets. Fuck those fuckers. Pure evil incarnate. They would land on my food while I'm trying to remove it from the barbecue. They would swarm me while cooking.
I later moved to an area that has huge and terrifying looking wasps, but they are pretty docile. I have caught my cat playing with one that got inside twice and neither time she got stung.

1st Worst: Mosquitoes
\ 2nd Worst: Wasps
\ 3rd Worst: Chiggers (that "red bug", technically a mite, like ticks)
Then all Australian wildlife approximatively

Pricks.

I tolerate them any time of day except when I’m sleeping.

A lot of wasps are totally harmless to humans! we have this really cute red stripey kind that constantly flies in figure eights over the ground, trying to detect Japanese Beetle larva to eat, for which I am grateful. I like wasps in general.

Annoying stinging fuckers, but they do serve an important role aside from being annoying stinging fuckers.

Hate most of the things, but some of them are cool. Mud daubers are friends

We talking hornets too? Fucking fuck the bald face shit heads.

Best enjoyed at a distance.

hate those little fuckers

The species I'm familiar with, Polistes dominula, is cool: they hang out around noon looking for water sometimes, I splash some and they oblige. Sometimes they hang out where I'm doing stuff and they're calm and move if I gently shove them. They complain a bit when I trim leaves where they happen to be chilling, but fly away. Never stung. They are surprisingly polite and aware of you, plus they eat some pests and polinate stuff. Some other species are assholes, though :/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_paper_wasp
- In general, even the most gangster animals don’t want to fight. Peace is enjoyable to every creature.
  I’ve had no trouble with stinging insects since I started viewing them as tiny strangers I was just passing on the street. Move predictably, don’t focus my eyes at them too long.
  Hell, I bet bugs even learn to read animal facial expressions, just like we can see whether they’re on guard or feeling safe from their movements. A bug can see when an animal’s thinking about eating or killing it.
  Incidentally imagine how terrifying an anteater must be, from the perspective of the ant. Imagine a creature towering between the buildings with a long sticky tongue seeking around, sticking as many people as possible to it, then suddenly slurping them up into the sky.
  That’s pure horror.

I have no quarrel with them.

Outside: we cool Inside: good god no!

Bzzzz

They get drunk and try to sting me in the fall. Do not like.

I really haven't had an issue with them. I've been stung a few times, but usually I know what I did wrong. Once or twice my dogs made them mad and they ended up going for me.
I used to have this storage shed that was full of wasp nests. I don't mean just a few small nests, the wall was literally covered with wasps. I could go in there to fetch something and as long as I moved slowly they didn't seem to care. (Though I did try to avoid the day time and visit them when it was pretty cool and they were torpid.) Never even had a close call with those wasps.

Hate em

Beautiful insects with some fascinating behaviour. Just don't disturb them and you are fine
- See, the problem is that my definition of "don't disturb" and their definition are very, very different. I don't disturb them the same way I don't disturb bees: oh, look, it's a few feet away, I'll just stay over here and mind my own business!
  Their definition is: "stay several hundred feet away from me, don't even look at me, if the air anywhere in my vicinity vibrates as an after effect of you breathing half a mile away I will hunt you the fuck down"
  So, like, it's a fundamental incompatibility. They can't abide me existing, and I can't abide them being horrifically aggressive because I dared to exist. Unfortunately for them, I have the advantage of size and tools.
  
  And so we went to war.
  
  Fair enough, I guess we must be used to different species. I've never had a problem with lone wasps, and as for the nest building ones, I once got swarmed by a paper wasp colony but only because one of them got accidentally caught and squashed in my clothing.

Rather rude to group them all together like that. If we're talking mud daubers or paper wasps, we're totally chill.
Ground-nesting yellowjackets get the boiling water and dish soap treatment in the dead of the night if they're in the yard. I've had too many cases of cleaning up yard debris and suddenly getting attacked by the little bastards to attempt peaceful coexistence.

I removed a small nest from my door frame a few months ago and one larva fell out. It landed on the hot concrete in the summer sun. I empathized and picked it up. I kept it in a jar with a paper towel under a lamp. I checked on it everyday and I thought that someday I'd set it free in my yard. I even daydreamed that it would immediately sting me when I let it go and that just made me laugh a bit. It eventually died and I put it on my bird feeder. I didn't watch and ai felt sad but it's gone now.
- I'd probably squashed it right away, but maybe if I were feeling spicy: Grab a magnifying glass and burnt that mf alive

There are thousands of species, and almost all are either critical pollinators or predators on other insects, including mosquitoes and other flies. Only a few species are known to sting people when threatened, but they're some of the biggest and most visible wasps, so they're what people think about