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Of Resident Polistes Vespidae
A couple of days ago, as I exited my house from the downstairs front door, I felt a light but familiar tap on the top of my head. I didn't wait for a second tap to know what it was. I ducked and looked up instinctively. There was an active paper wasp nest in the upper right corner of the doorway.
The wasps were not happy that I had walked through their territory.
It reminded me of the time a colony of bumble bees attacked me, following and stinging me as I fled into the house.
I clearly remember the pre-attack behavior of the bees. I was standing beneath the tree, unaware of their presence just a foot or so above my head. I had felt several taps on top of my head. I thought perhaps a spider was dangling above me, and called to my husband to look at my head and see if a spider had dropped on me. His eyes focused, then widened as he backed up and yelled, 'RUN! Bees!'
I didn't wait for another word, and I ran, kicking off my flip-flops, flailing my arms to wave them off of me. By then, they were stinging me, and one had flown or crawled beneath my t-shirt.
Once in the house, I started tearing off my clothes to get the bees off of me. Several stings later, the bees were either stepped on or swatted, and I was breathless from all the running and hollering I did. No serious allergic reactions except for the huge hard welts left behind on my neck, head, and back.
Later, after I had recovered from the attack, my husband tried to shoot down the nest with a BB gun. It was my then 12 year-old son's good aim and a killer pitcher arm that finally knocked it to the ground to prevent any future attacks (then Steve sprayed the entire nest with wasp killer spray and we watched for about an hour from our living room window while the bees died). They were not honey bees, and the nest was inside a bird house.
When I stepped out of my house a few days ago, feeling that warning tap on top of my head, I knew to move fast and to move away. Straight into the house to get a .... well, I admit, first I thought of the hornet/wasp spray that shoots 20 feet... but I saw my camera and grabbed it instead.
I took a picture of the paper nest as it hung in the place where the wasps had built it. When it had been only a few cells, I hadn't worried about it, but clearly I had ignored it too long, and now there were easily 20 or more cells, many of them already capped over pupating wasps.
After I took a picture of it, I did the dastardly deed and sprayed the adult wasps. They dropped instantly to the ground. Then I dislodged the nest.
Of course, I felt a little remorse that I had killed these wonderful insects because they do eat pesty garden insects. I wondered if they ate Japanes beetles, which can turn a garden or a tree into an unsightly lacy network rather quickly. I had no idea how to relocate the wasp nest without killing the inhabitants.
I did an aol search and found out that there are 22 species of paper wasps in North America, and approximately 700 species world-wide. They chew wood fiber to make papier-mache like material to form the cells of the nest.
And they will defend their nests if attacked.
Like I said, my passing below them did not cause them to attack me. They warned me with a head tap. Had I not moved away, they might have proceeded to the next battle strategy. I have seen paper wasp nests that are hundreds of cells huge. Now that's a nest I wouldn't want to mess with.
I just found another website, the Kentucky University Entomology department. I feel less guilty about killing the wasps after reading it. Though the wasps are not aggressive, their stings cause the deaths of possibly thousands of people each year in our country.
They suggested spraying the insects with wasp and hornet spray and knocking down the nest. Hmm, a little common sense, don't you think?
Have you been stung by a bee, hornet, wasp, or yellow-jacket? I'm going to state right now that I've never been stung by a hornet or a wasp, but have been stung by bees and yellow-jackets, and the yellow-jacket sting was far worse than the bee sting. Ten times more painful... swelling and pain lasted much longer than the bee sting.
I would love for you to leave a comment about your stinging experience. Thanks for sharing!
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OK! Patti tried Bee Venom Therapy for her Multiple Sclerosis for two years. This involves being stung by honey bees in a somewhat controlled pattern a bit like acupuncture. She would receive two dozen honey bee stings every other day for two years. Since her eye hand coordination was already progressed beyond functional, I had to catch and hold each bee with a pair of tweezers and cause it to sting Patti in a targeted spot. Icing down the spot before and after minimized the pain. All in all it worked no better or worse than conventional FDA approved MS medications. And in the battle to control MS you leave no stone unturned. It just was incredibly time consuming.
I learned to have an extraordinary respect for the intelligence and “group think” ability of honey bees. For the record they are not aggressive and it took work to aggravate each individual bee while I held it with tweezers against Patti’s skin to make it sting her. <grin>
Patrick http://journals.aol.com/daddyleer/CaregivinglyYours/ -
I don't think I could find it now, over 40 years after it first happened, but for many years I had a 3/4" scar on my knee from a wasp sting. I was on a coin operated horse ride at a store when it happened. Apparently my movements on the "horsie" upset the wasp. It was a big, black thing. I think my aint wanted to put steak on the sting. I don't rememberwhether she actually did so, but in any case the scar lingered.
If these things shred wood pulp, you definitely don't want them living in the doorway of a wooden house! -
I'm allergic - but not the anaphylaxic(sp?) kind. I just get really swelled up and a little sick to my stomach. We have all kinds of wasps & bees around here and I do my best to avoid them.
Hugs,
Gwynn -
My sister was chased home by a swarm of wood bees once. Wasp stings always seemed to me to hurt worse than any bee or hornet, but she said that wood bees have wasps beat by a long shot! My husband is deathly allergic to wasp stings, but they don't do much damage to me.
Lori
http://journals.aol.com/helmswondermom/DustyPages/
7/24/06 3:23 PM
Patrick
http://journals.aol.com/daddy