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Wasps

Outside work, we smokers used to get pestered by wasps last summer. I made a wasp trap which dispatched a good few but I felt really bad about it so we bought a Waspinator. It's a bag that mimics a rival wasp nest, the principle being that other wasps stay clear of the territory. It worked.

I maintain that the main point of a wasp in Britain is to reinforce the wildlife dander code that stripes are a danger signal. Like the venomous Chipperfield Clown Zebra for example.
 
I actually have a vendetta against techny arborvitae, as they were indirectly responsible for me getting stung by far more hornets than necessary.

I used to landscape. In this instance, there was only machinery work to be done, so I was sent to the boss's mom's place to tidy up (mow the lawn, trim things, etc.).

Well, she owned several acres, so this was an all-day job. No problem for me, though I wondered if I could do it faster.

Techny arborvitae are spiny little bastards and we had planted a lot of them at an apartment complex recently. You get used to them pricking your arms as you plant them. They're evergreens with particularly hard needles. End of the day, you'd go home with all sorts of welts on your arms where the needles pricked you. An optimist would say I was "desensitized". I say that they had it out for me from the beginning.

There was a tree line at the edge of her property which consisted of nice, soft-needled evergreens. Instead of coming back through with a weed-whacker, I figured I could just let the boughs hit me in the chest and get the riding mower close enough to take care of the rest of the grass.

I started to think to myself, "Man, these needles really hurt!" Several seconds later, I noticed "bugs" flying around me. A few seconds more and I realized that the bugs were to blame for the pain. Thank god the riding mower I was on had an automatic cutoff because I leapt straight off the seat and proceeded to cuss wildly.

Turns out I had let a hornet's nest smack me right in the chest. It was hanging off of one of the boughs.

To her credit, this elderly woman who was the quintessential "grandmotherly figure", didn't even flinch at my cursewords and just went and got alcohol and cotton balls.

Screw techny arborvitae. I guess that's the thing to take away from this rant.
 
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I was once at a reenactment event at Scarborough Castle. From a distance, I witnessed a group of my fellow reenactors repeatedly clustering around a wood pile, then dispersing rapidly. Heedless of what curiosity did for the cat, I both wondered and wandered over. There was, on the wood pile, a solitary insect, grey of body and orange of limb. It had a large, menacing, orange sting protruding from its posterior. In my mind's eye now, I would swear you could see a bead of venom hanging off the end. When a reenactor got too close, the thing would launch, prompting merry shrieks and the rapid dispersal noted earlier. Well, it was all fun and games until one lad went over with a bellow of pain the like of which I have heard neither before nor since. I turned to see him ashen faced and moaning, clutching his knee. Bloody hell, I thought, that stinger was no joke after all. In fact, it never touched him. Didn't need to. His foot had gone down wrong, and he had dislocated his knee.
 
John Evans ‏@Distinctboxes 5h5 hours ago
If Wasps Find Colored Paper They’ll Make Rainbow-Colored Nests. Mattia Menchetti

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God help us, that's like something out of The Daily Mash or Viz o_O

Looking forward to the Guardian follow-up: "Are Wasps' Nests Sexist?" ;)

Now to tackle (ho ho) the problem of gentlemen tying bricks to their cocks.
 

Looking at the post alone, I envisaged live wasps being involved; and decided that I definitely did not want to go on to the link. Mentioned the thing to my brother -- a more venturesome type than me, he checked out the link: and lo and behold, it's just ground-up wasp-nest materials; quite "tame", in comparison to my fevered imaginings.
 
One way of dealing with wasps.

Overkill: Flamethrower drone incinerates wasp nests in China

Overkill: Flamethrower drone incinerates wasp nests in China

A drone equipped with a flamethrower burns a wasp nest at a village in China (Blue Sky Rescue/AP)
SAT, 12 DEC, 2020 - 08:11
AP REPORTERS

A drone has been converted into a flying flamethrower in a fiery campaign to eradicate more than 100 wasp nests in a central China village. Blue Sky Rescue, a volunteer group that conducts search and rescue and other emergency work, has teamed up with residents in Zhong county near the city of Chongqing. They raised 80,000 yuan (£9,200) to buy a drone and equip it with a petrol tank and an arm-length nozzle. ...

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40189449.html
 
One way of dealing with wasps.

Overkill: Flamethrower drone incinerates wasp nests in China

Overkill: Flamethrower drone incinerates wasp nests in China

A drone equipped with a flamethrower burns a wasp nest at a village in China (Blue Sky Rescue/AP)
SAT, 12 DEC, 2020 - 08:11
AP REPORTERS

A drone has been converted into a flying flamethrower in a fiery campaign to eradicate more than 100 wasp nests in a central China village. Blue Sky Rescue, a volunteer group that conducts search and rescue and other emergency work, has teamed up with residents in Zhong county near the city of Chongqing. They raised 80,000 yuan (£9,200) to buy a drone and equip it with a petrol tank and an arm-length nozzle. ...

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40189449.html
Idiots. When the wasps are obliterated they'll have far worse pests to deal with.
 
One way of dealing with wasps.

Overkill: Flamethrower drone incinerates wasp nests in China

Overkill: Flamethrower drone incinerates wasp nests in China

A drone equipped with a flamethrower burns a wasp nest at a village in China (Blue Sky Rescue/AP)
SAT, 12 DEC, 2020 - 08:11
AP REPORTERS

A drone has been converted into a flying flamethrower in a fiery campaign to eradicate more than 100 wasp nests in a central China village. Blue Sky Rescue, a volunteer group that conducts search and rescue and other emergency work, has teamed up with residents in Zhong county near the city of Chongqing. They raised 80,000 yuan (£9,200) to buy a drone and equip it with a petrol tank and an arm-length nozzle. ...

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40189449.html
A forest fire-starting drone? How useful.
 
Male wasps have painful pricks.

When a Japanese entomologist got stung by a male wasp earlier this year, she was shocked. Only female wasps and bees should be able to deliver such a painful prick, as their venom-bearing stingers are modified egg-laying organs known as ovipositors. Males are generally considered harmless.

After taking a closer look at the mason wasp (Anterhynchium gibbifrons) that stung her, the scientist realized it had pierced her skin using its sharp, two-pronged genitalia, she and colleagues report today in Current Biology.

To test whether these male pseudostingers might deter attackers, the researchers placed male mason wasps inside an enclosure with one of their predators, a tree frog. As the frogs attacked the wasps every time, the wasps fought back with their piercing penises—and got spat back out about one-third of the time (as seen in the photo above). Male wasps that had their pseudostingers removed uniformly became frog food.

The findings represent the first evidence of male genitalia playing a defensive role in the animal kingdom. Now that they know what to look for, the researchers suspect they’ll find similar tactics in other wasps. ...

https://www.science.org/content/article/male-wasps-fend-attackers-penis-stingers
 
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