Pretty cool from a distance.
What are your favorite wasp stories?
I once tried to knock a basketball-sized hive from a mobile home with a shovel, on a hot summer day.
I will never try that again.
One time, I got lost in Tulsa, and I wound up in this neighborhood where all these well-to-do white Presbyterians lived, and my sister was driving and had a blowout, and we had to change the tire. Err… no… that’s not a WASP story.
Wow, FC, good story. Jennifer Hale is a babe. 
djm
(WASP - whatever good that may be)
Correction: Those are yellow-jackets. Apparently they are different from wasps or W.A.S.P.
This is some kind of Asian hornet.
I couldn’t find out what kind this was but notice it has killed honey bees.
This is a cicada killer wasp. Supposedly very docile.
That was very interesting. I had a yellowjacket nest in a crack in our foundation last year. We tried killing them with spray, but didn’t seem to be getting results and I thought they’d come out of the nest in droves this spring. I bought traps for this year, thinking I would need them and I had planned to call some professionals. So far, I have seen no yellowjackets from that nest. I guess maybe they died over the winter. I had no idea they did that. So if they die in the cold weather, then where do they come from? I am puzzled.
I saw something in our backyard that looked very similar to that picture of the cicada killer wasp. It was just the biggest looking thing like that I had ever seen. The one I saw seemed to have a little more yellow on it though. I am hoping not to see a whole lot more of them, whatever it was, docile or not 
.
Yeah wrong wasp, bro. 
What hornets can do to honeybees is shown in this video:
All you probably ever wanted to know about Vespa mandarinia (warning: may be a slowish load for those on dialup):
They’re really fast, those Asian hornets!
On a slightly more serious tone, out in Alberta a couple of weeks ago and went to the Heritage museum. Hanging in front of the doors of the old buildings were paper bags that had been inflated and then tied at the opening with twine and subsequently tied to a nail. Apparently it keeps the wasps away since they see the paper bag as territorial competition, and they find somewhere else to nest.
They say it works.
Spontaneous generation.
Miz Science Lamb
[quote=“Cynth”]That was very interesting. I had a yellowjacket nest in a crack in our foundation last year. We tried killing them with spray, but didn’t seem to be getting results and I thought they’d come out of the nest in droves this spring. I bought traps for this year, thinking I would need them and I had planned to call some professionals. So far, I have seen no yellowjackets from that nest. I guess maybe they died over the winter. I had no idea they did that. So if they die in the cold weather, then where do they come from? I am puzzled.
If I remember correctly, and I might not, I think that normally only the queen overwinters, and she does it in a small protected area. Here in the Pacific Northwest, one can often find overwintering yellow jacket queens under loose bark on downed trees. The queen mates before settling down for winter, and will start a new colony from scratch in the spring. Not all of the queens make it through the winter. I’m guessing that in this case a much higher number of queens than normal made it through the winter, and instead of competing for nesting sites, they are sharing them and creating the super colonies. I guess it could also be possible that during a very mild winter a colony could make it through the winter?
When I was beekeeping, each fall I would often see wasps of many types carrying off my honey bees. The really bold wasps would land on my arms and carry off the bees that were hanging out as I went through the colonies. My husband would laugh because I could be covered with honey bees with no problem, but as soon as a wasp landed on me I could tell and would be trying to fling it off.
I sure wouldn’t want to come across one of those super colonies! That story makes me want to spray the tiny nest under the lid of my recycle bin.
The hornet (the really BIG hornet in the photo) is also known as a Japanese hornet, also known as a bell hornet around my neck of the woods. We have them visit our house, from time to time, and I keep a quick-kill spray to deal with them They nest in hollow trees, so there must be a hollow tree near our house. So far, no one has been stung by one.
I heard a story to the effect that they were imported on purpose around the beginning of the 20th Cent. to deal with the Japanese beetle infestations (which were also an inadvertent import, too.) But they liked it here so much that they found a home, and I don’t think they eat too many Japanese beetles. They just fly into our home, orbit the ceiling lights, and sound like a drill press with wings…
With best regards,
Steve Mack
'Tis the stuff nightmares of made of…
You know, I’m not particularly afraid of snakes. Spiders don’t creep me out at all, even the big fuzzy ones.
But bees, wasps, and hornets? Bbbbrrrrrrrrr! The only theory I can come up with that explains them is that, way back yonder, somebody must have left the lid off Hell.
/me shudders fiercely
–James.tar.gz
Yeah, but what do you think of dirt daubers?
That is interesting about just the queen overwintering—I’ll look around on the Internet I guess and see what they say, I would never have thought of that. I guess since I haven’t seen any yellow jackets around the old nest she might have died or gone somewhere else. That is a relief. We want to seal up the broken concrete but I have been afraid we might be enclosing live yellow jackets that might tunnel out into the house or something.
I stepped on a yellow jacket once and it was a powerfully painful sting. I can believe those super colonies would be very dangerous. I wouldn’t let that little nest get too big!
Get with the times, Lamby!
I’m still waiting for an opportunity to share the phlogiston theory.
A couple of years ago I was at the bank of the pond at my parent’s property and I stepped in a nest of yellow jackets or wasps - not sure which honestly, it happened very quickly.
The upshot was that I was stung in about 15 places and they were agonizingly painful. This was as I was still running up to the house/rolling on the ground/screaming/telling the kids to stay away/and generally smacking myself around in a very violent manner. They stayed with me for the whole way of 100 metres or so.
Tenacious little things.
That’s interesting because I cannot abide spiders of any kind yet I have a yellow jacked nest on my porch, (very small) and it doesn’t bother me. I figure the little guys eat spiders so let 'em go. However I just discovered that they may not eat spiders after all. Mud daubers eat spiders.
The life cycle of the wasp is basically thus: The queen lays eggs in the spring which produce female workers. These workers tend to the next generation which consist of males and females late in the summer. They mate and the males die. When cold weather sets in the nest dies including the queen. Only the mated females survive where they hibernate to become queens the following year.
Brilliant! I’ve got the magnesium wating. Bring it on! 
djm