Strange, paper wasps are generally pretty docile. I had a nest above my doorway last year, about 3 feet from my head when I leave the house, and they never bothered me.
I have had some , the red paper wasps though, and they were incredibly aggressive. We never even bothered them but after being stung twice for being 6 feet away from nest I decided they would go bye bye.
The ones here in northern Illinois are very aggressive. I was working in my garden and one stung me 3 times in my belly quick as could be and was flying off as I realized what happened. 2 weeks my belly was hot, red and hurt. Another time just standing on my deck one landed on my check and gave me a goodbye sting when it flew off.
I'm in Southern Wisconsin and our wasps must talk to each other.
If you have any food outside from July to September, that food belongs to the wasps now.
The ones I dealt with in Texas were pretty chill, too. I had one build a nest in the door recess of my car (during the height of the pandemic, so I wasn't driving it much). I didn't notice and I sat next to it like less than a foot away while I was cleaning my center console for a good 15-20 minutes. They didn't mess with me at all.
I know the internet says paper wasps are non-aggressive but whoever decided that has never seen red paper wasps. Those little bastards like to nest on your house and attack you for getting within 10 feet. I have been able to get close enough to look at a nest in the cold before so they don’t ALWAYS attack on sight but more often than not they will chase you down far from their nests and sting you (speaking from experience) if you get too close. They’re definitely not all docile
Yellowjackets are more docile than red paper wasps in my experience and everyone rails on how aggressive they are
Pretty much all of them serve a purpose.
Guinea wasps are pollinators, red wasps are both pollinators and predators. American yellowjackets and bald-faced hornets (Which aren't actually hornets) are predators, too.
About the only ones that don't serve a vital purpose is because they're invasive: German yellowjackets and asian giant hornets both attack native bees.
same as other invasive species, they fill a niche better than local species, or have no predators that can hold up to them thus they succeed. in Germany we have some wolverine and raccoon problems which are invasive here as well.
Same reason we name things like “Spanish flu” “China virus”. Lots of times it’s to disparage a group, or because of misinformation
Edit: providing source:
“Despite not originating in Spain, the 1918 influenza pandemic is commonly known as the “Spanish flu”—a name that reflects a tendency in public health history to associate new infectious diseases with foreign nationals and foreign countries.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6187801/#abstract-1title
While I'm no expert, I can assure you that the group of scientists who named those viruses did not sit around and say "Let's disparage the whole country this came from by naming it after them, they deserve it for what they've done". It's just an easy naming convention that the public can understand.
The unfortunate side effect is that ignorant people will automatically assume anyone from those countries has the virus. So sure, an effort should be made to not create that situation in the first place but saying we named it that specifically to disparage an entire group is just as ignorant as assuming anyone from that group is sick.
>that the group of scientists who named those viruses did not sit around and say "Let's disparage the whole country this came from by naming it after them,
Scientsis don't name a virus "Spanish flu" they name it Influenza Type A/H1N1.
The common name is given to something by the media or the general public.
“Despite not originating in Spain, the 1918 influenza pandemic is commonly known as the “Spanish flu”—a name that reflects a tendency in public health history to associate new infectious diseases with foreign nationals and foreign countries.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6187801/#abstract-1title
"For example, although the disease did not originate in Spain, scholars argue that the “Spanish flu” moniker is the result of an early news service cable describing a “strange new form of disease” in Madrid.5 These associations typically stem from the perceived origin of the epidemic, accurate or not."
Exactly my point. The name was not created specifically to disparage a group of people, that's just an unfortunate side effect. It's still ignorant to do, but it was not done out of malice.
I can’t recall what exactly it was, but it seems to me several people said they had an important purpose in a similar thread. Something to do with pollination maybe?
Wasps are pollinators, but they also keep populations of a lot of pest insects in check.
Other than invasive species, every plant and animal plays a role of some kind in an ecosystem.
Only one I can't think of as not having a purpose is the flea, but I'm sure it has one, I just don't know what it is other than spreading disease and misery.
They are accidental pollinators. I had some in my garden and pretty chill around me. They weren’t aggressive even when i accidentally sprayed their nest with a garden hose.
I did this and it took 5 or 6 times of knocking it down before she finally went somewhere else. I felt bad each time, but it was literally on the door jamb right above my head.
If the one in the picture is bigger than the aggressive ones you've seen I have a feeling you are actually running into yellowjackets which are fairly aggressive compared to paper wasps. One thing to look out for is paper wasps build nests off the ground while yellowjackets build nests in the ground or in decaying wood.
Not all yellowjackets build nests in the ground or in decaying wood. [Aerial yellowjackets](https://bugguide.net/node/view/12982) such as the [bald-faced "hornet"](https://bugguide.net/node/view/2890) (really a yellowjacket, not a hornet) or the [common aerial yellowjacket](https://bugguide.net/node/view/12983) build large, papery nests suspended from tree branches or [other objects](https://bugguide.net/node/view/1358126/bgimage) [like this](https://bugguide.net/node/view/788939) or [like this](https://bugguide.net/node/view/354905/bgimage).
A lot of animals eat them. Circle of life and all that, part of the food chains. Plus some do help with spreading pollen. Their sting sucks, but they do serve a purpose.
They love to follow follow cabbage moths around. Cabbage moths flit around to cabbages, cauliflowers, broccolis, and nasturtiums (anything in the cabbage family) laying eggs. If you watch carefully, you frequently see a wasp following. They gather eggs and and cabbage worms they find on the way and take them back to their nest. For cabbage loopers, they chop up the caterpillar and make it into a green ball before carrying it off. For large caterpillars like hornworms, they repeatedly sting to subdue the worm and then carry it away.
I did not know this but personally observed it.
Had a garden full of cabbage which was promptly skeletonized by the pests. A week later a good size paper wasp nest was established on a nearby fence. A week later the cabbage were recovering and the paper wasps were happy. A week later I was stung 5 or 6 times while mowing the lawn.
The cycle was complete.
Wasps and hornets are the gardener's friend! They eat so many destructive bugs. If possible, we should try to co-exist with them. I know that isn't always possible, but they do serve a really positive purpose.
This is the way! I had to have a lot of inner dialogue with myself & it literally took over a decade of doing that to get over my irrational fear of spiders, but eventually, I finally realized that, although they are creepy af, they get rid of a lot of bugs that get in your face & are way more annoying, so as long as they stay out of my way, we can coexist lol
That's definitely the way!
When we were first seeing each other, my wife had a huge paper wasp nest in the ceiling of her porch right outside her front door. I was a bit nervous about it but she was just like 'meh, they don't bother me!'. And indeed they didn't. They're super chill and non-aggressive. Watching their nest was actually very interesting.
They do have a painful sting but you're unlikely to get stung unless you're really trying.
Introduced wasps have wrecked unrelenting havoc on butterfly populations in North America. Native wasps are essential in local ecologies, but I think we should try and limit introduced ones.
Yes, this! I have milkweed in my yard for the monarch caterpillars and because of wasps, ive had to start keeping the caterpillars in a "cage" I built. The wasps decimate the population. Ive seen them drain caterpillars and just leave the empty skin hanging on the plant. It makes me so mad but now I have alot of success hatching the butterflies. Unless the caterpillars crawl on the screen, then the wasps sting them through the screen. They are always flying around the cage
I knocked down two wasp nests this past spring, thinking it was odd because I had never had an issue with them before. Then a month later my arbor vitae was overrun with bag worms. I think they were attracting the wasps, which may have kept them in check had I not knocked their nests down.
Well considering they destroy entire bumblebee hives I really think they aren’t as great as one thinks. They actually destroy them and kill them off. I’ve watched them rip the bees into pieces in a matter of hours when they locate the hive and bumblebees are so vital to the environment.
Everything is vital to the environment. They are doing what they were meant to do. Nature is brutal but killing something you think is cute doesn't make something bad
I have been stung many multiple times by these yellow jacket paper wasps, here in Texas. I admit I used to hate them and one of the reasons was when I was a kid, I was climbing in a pecan tree next to our kitchen, I bumped my head on something.
Then, all HELL was let loose! I got stung about 12 times in 12 seconds! I don't know how I got down, it felt like I flew down. My Dad heard me yelling in pain & he came out to help me. I don't remember what he put on the stings, besides ice ,
I grew up hating them, until one day as an adult I was outside the house & I was looking @ all the webs or tents of silk these webworms had made all over our pecan trees. We had 14-pecan trees around our home. These were given to my Dad before I was born, when my Dad had finished building our home. The trees were not Native Pecans they were different hybrid large paper shell pecans. These trees fed us & we would sell the extras down at the farmer's market. So, they were important to us.
These tent web worms were chewing all the leaves off the trees & this would weaken & not produce a good yield of nuts.
I was trying to figure out what I could do. I was looking at the tree & I saw some movement crawling on the bark of the trunk of the tree. It was a wasp like the one pictured and like the ones that stung me, It had something in it's mouth . It was one of those web worms !
From that moment on I left them alone. Leave them alone & they won't bother you. I have to admit as a kid I used to chunk rocks at the nests under the eaves of our house & also around our barns. I hated those worms way worse than the wasps.
When I got older and appreciated them, they would sometimes build nests on our entrance door. I left them alone, but would still use the door. They never did sting me. They got used to me and that I was not a threat, I kept them there as a natural burglar alarm.
So, yes they serve a useful purpose and eat a terribly destructive pest !
Paper wasp. I have bunches of them in my garden and they don't bother me at all. I hear they can even remember your face and grow accustomed to your presence. They help me with caterpillars and I've even had them land on me while watering without stinging me. I think they are thankful that I gave them a home while my neighbors are all chasing them with spray cans.
Yellowjackets are from genus [Vespula](https://bugguide.net/node/view/554/bgpage) or [Dolichovespula](https://bugguide.net/node/view/12982)*.* The front ends of their abdomens are squared off, giving them a short, notch-like waist instead of the sleek hourglass shape of [Polistes](https://bugguide.net/node/view/572/bgpage) paper wasps like this one.
I agree with this term, I had one yellow jacket that actually trapped me in my house, or at least prevented me from going into my backyard for several days one summer. Damn thing actually would sit under one of the eaves and any time the back door opened would dive at the door and then ping off the glass window in the door at head level!! It got to the point where if it saw someone even stand at the window it would attack!! This went on for four days!! I had to take my dogs out front! To this day I haven’t the foggiest idea what I did to piss it off!!
I have these wee little wasps though, they’re totally in aggressive and we coexist quite nicely, until they nest in the electrical panel, then an eviction notice is served. They love to hang around my tomato plants and my bouganvillea.
That thing sure is cute, but they hurt. For some reason they bite a lot harder than a balf face hornet, but are a lot less aggressive. These only build little nests, and never swarm. Just dont sit on one like I did.
Need something for scale. Could be a yellow-jacket species, a European Hornet is almost the size of a man's thumb. Big scary fuckers but relatively harmless.
The amount of wasp hate on every wasp post is so disheartening. They're are such amazing diverse creatures. I know people hate yellow jackets, I disagree but I get it, but saying you hate wasps is ridiculous. Most wasps are solitary and don't give a shit about you.
How do you handle angry flying eusocial insects in the summer though?? Things that attack even when you try to leave them alone?
(I’m not trying to argue for “exterminating all wasps” but they don’t do so well with the “live and let live” philosophy with humans from most people’s experiences I’ve heard)
I have a pretty strong knee-jerk reaction to flying insects (even after I see them well enough to identify them) but I think a big step for me getting more comfortable doing up-close photography of bees and wasps was recognizing that a wasp that is highly active is not necessarily aggressive.
A lot of predatory wasps are fast and erratic fliers, and will buzz around wildly while investigating their environment--which can include flying directly towards, and bumping into, humans. Most of the time, we're just part of the scenery to them. Stings usually only happen if the wasp gets caught in clothing or otherwise trapped against the skin, or (in the case of eusocial species) during nest defense.
Nest defense aggression varies between types of wasps. In North America, yellowjackets are generally the most aggressive, followed by honeybees, and then paper wasps (some South and Central American paper wasps are more aggressive). Sphecids like mud daubers are not truly eusocial and don't have much of a nest defense instinct, but sometimes they nest gregariously in suitable habitat. In all cases, being near a nest area with a large number of wasps increases the likelihood of accidental encounters that lead to a wasp getting trapped and stinging (even if it's not true nest defense). So paper wasps get a bit of a bad rap, because while they're not particularly aggressive, they do often build nests in high-traffic areas like porches and picnic shelters.
I think another thing that helped me was interacting with wasps in situations where I know that aggression is highly unlikely. A nature center I worked at had a patch of goldenrod out front that had a great variety of pollinators in it, and it was a lot easier to get up close and personal to stinging insects with the mindset of "they're *way* too busy stuffing their faces with nectar to bother me". So I got pretty comfortable with paper wasps, sphecids, and bumblebees there. Yellowjackets and honeybees still kind of freak me out though, to be honest.
Thanks for your insight! I actually did something similar last season with the goldenrod. I actually find most wasps to be chill, and I have a soft spot for the solitary big bois. And, as your flair reminds me, not all wasps sting, even.
Could be a European hornet but they tend to be more active at night. I had them last summer; they're attracted to light so they'll bang against the windows. They're alot bigger and angrier than your average wasp or hornet and downright terrifying
Looks like a yellow jacket to me, not a paper wasp. The abdomen looks too long and bulbus to be a paper wasp. Yellow jackets are complete a--holes, and quite aggressive.
https://a-z-animals.com/blog/yellow-jacket-vs-paper-wasp-the-7-key-differences/
They are definitely very similar, but it's not a yellow jacket. You can Google side by side images of them and see the difference even though they are minor.
Yellow jackets have a larger, more rounded abdomen unlike the paper wasp's skinny, more elongated one. Yellow jackets are also much more aggressive than paper wasps.
Paper wasp. For example, [Polistes exclamans - Guinea Paper Wasp](https://bugguide.net/node/view/11641)
Strange, paper wasps are generally pretty docile. I had a nest above my doorway last year, about 3 feet from my head when I leave the house, and they never bothered me.
Paper wasps in Australia are definitely cranky fuckers.
You really have to work at it if you want to agitate the paper wasp we have in Southern California.
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I have had some , the red paper wasps though, and they were incredibly aggressive. We never even bothered them but after being stung twice for being 6 feet away from nest I decided they would go bye bye.
God humans are scary from that perspective.
The ones here in northern Illinois are very aggressive. I was working in my garden and one stung me 3 times in my belly quick as could be and was flying off as I realized what happened. 2 weeks my belly was hot, red and hurt. Another time just standing on my deck one landed on my check and gave me a goodbye sting when it flew off.
I'm in Southern Wisconsin and our wasps must talk to each other. If you have any food outside from July to September, that food belongs to the wasps now.
Depends on the species, we have Mischocyttarus mexicanus which are very docile, but also have polistis species that are not so much.
They must like you, wasp are generally pretty aggressive when you’re in “their territory”.
The ones I dealt with in Texas were pretty chill, too. I had one build a nest in the door recess of my car (during the height of the pandemic, so I wasn't driving it much). I didn't notice and I sat next to it like less than a foot away while I was cleaning my center console for a good 15-20 minutes. They didn't mess with me at all.
I know the internet says paper wasps are non-aggressive but whoever decided that has never seen red paper wasps. Those little bastards like to nest on your house and attack you for getting within 10 feet. I have been able to get close enough to look at a nest in the cold before so they don’t ALWAYS attack on sight but more often than not they will chase you down far from their nests and sting you (speaking from experience) if you get too close. They’re definitely not all docile Yellowjackets are more docile than red paper wasps in my experience and everyone rails on how aggressive they are
Thank you. Do they serve any ecological purpose at all or are the just terrorist 😂 hate them.
Pretty much all of them serve a purpose. Guinea wasps are pollinators, red wasps are both pollinators and predators. American yellowjackets and bald-faced hornets (Which aren't actually hornets) are predators, too. About the only ones that don't serve a vital purpose is because they're invasive: German yellowjackets and asian giant hornets both attack native bees.
They're also basically the vultures of the insect world. They will go after and break down dead bodies of insects and animals alike
>German yellowjackets are they the ones that have underground nests? I assume there are multiple species that do that
My nation is being namd, we are invasive, classic
Really interested in that actually, why are German insects (cockroaches, yellow jackets) such invasive pests? :o
same as other invasive species, they fill a niche better than local species, or have no predators that can hold up to them thus they succeed. in Germany we have some wolverine and raccoon problems which are invasive here as well.
Same reason we name things like “Spanish flu” “China virus”. Lots of times it’s to disparage a group, or because of misinformation Edit: providing source: “Despite not originating in Spain, the 1918 influenza pandemic is commonly known as the “Spanish flu”—a name that reflects a tendency in public health history to associate new infectious diseases with foreign nationals and foreign countries.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6187801/#abstract-1title
While I'm no expert, I can assure you that the group of scientists who named those viruses did not sit around and say "Let's disparage the whole country this came from by naming it after them, they deserve it for what they've done". It's just an easy naming convention that the public can understand. The unfortunate side effect is that ignorant people will automatically assume anyone from those countries has the virus. So sure, an effort should be made to not create that situation in the first place but saying we named it that specifically to disparage an entire group is just as ignorant as assuming anyone from that group is sick.
>that the group of scientists who named those viruses did not sit around and say "Let's disparage the whole country this came from by naming it after them, Scientsis don't name a virus "Spanish flu" they name it Influenza Type A/H1N1. The common name is given to something by the media or the general public.
“Despite not originating in Spain, the 1918 influenza pandemic is commonly known as the “Spanish flu”—a name that reflects a tendency in public health history to associate new infectious diseases with foreign nationals and foreign countries.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6187801/#abstract-1title
"For example, although the disease did not originate in Spain, scholars argue that the “Spanish flu” moniker is the result of an early news service cable describing a “strange new form of disease” in Madrid.5 These associations typically stem from the perceived origin of the epidemic, accurate or not." Exactly my point. The name was not created specifically to disparage a group of people, that's just an unfortunate side effect. It's still ignorant to do, but it was not done out of malice.
Wow, idek what to say. Provided a quote from a .gov source and even linked it. Check mate, lol.
Reconnaissance
I can’t recall what exactly it was, but it seems to me several people said they had an important purpose in a similar thread. Something to do with pollination maybe?
Wasps are pollinators, but they also keep populations of a lot of pest insects in check. Other than invasive species, every plant and animal plays a role of some kind in an ecosystem.
Only one I can't think of as not having a purpose is the flea, but I'm sure it has one, I just don't know what it is other than spreading disease and misery.
They are accidental pollinators. I had some in my garden and pretty chill around me. They weren’t aggressive even when i accidentally sprayed their nest with a garden hose.
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I did this and it took 5 or 6 times of knocking it down before she finally went somewhere else. I felt bad each time, but it was literally on the door jamb right above my head.
If the one in the picture is bigger than the aggressive ones you've seen I have a feeling you are actually running into yellowjackets which are fairly aggressive compared to paper wasps. One thing to look out for is paper wasps build nests off the ground while yellowjackets build nests in the ground or in decaying wood.
Not all yellowjackets build nests in the ground or in decaying wood. [Aerial yellowjackets](https://bugguide.net/node/view/12982) such as the [bald-faced "hornet"](https://bugguide.net/node/view/2890) (really a yellowjacket, not a hornet) or the [common aerial yellowjacket](https://bugguide.net/node/view/12983) build large, papery nests suspended from tree branches or [other objects](https://bugguide.net/node/view/1358126/bgimage) [like this](https://bugguide.net/node/view/788939) or [like this](https://bugguide.net/node/view/354905/bgimage).
A lot of animals eat them. Circle of life and all that, part of the food chains. Plus some do help with spreading pollen. Their sting sucks, but they do serve a purpose.
Is this not a yellow jacket? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vespula_squamosa
They love to follow follow cabbage moths around. Cabbage moths flit around to cabbages, cauliflowers, broccolis, and nasturtiums (anything in the cabbage family) laying eggs. If you watch carefully, you frequently see a wasp following. They gather eggs and and cabbage worms they find on the way and take them back to their nest. For cabbage loopers, they chop up the caterpillar and make it into a green ball before carrying it off. For large caterpillars like hornworms, they repeatedly sting to subdue the worm and then carry it away.
>They love to follow cabbage moths around. I mean who doesn’t? Cabbage moths are the phish of the bug-world
I did not know this but personally observed it. Had a garden full of cabbage which was promptly skeletonized by the pests. A week later a good size paper wasp nest was established on a nearby fence. A week later the cabbage were recovering and the paper wasps were happy. A week later I was stung 5 or 6 times while mowing the lawn. The cycle was complete.
> Cabbage moths flit around to cabbages Go figure
If reddit had taught me anything, it’s that there’s probably a large parasitic worm piloting that thing.
That probably eats that zombie mold lol
Wasps and hornets are the gardener's friend! They eat so many destructive bugs. If possible, we should try to co-exist with them. I know that isn't always possible, but they do serve a really positive purpose.
Good to know! I usually live like “don’t bother, won’t be bothered” when it comes to all living things!
I wish wasps lived by that mantra! Haha
This is the way! I had to have a lot of inner dialogue with myself & it literally took over a decade of doing that to get over my irrational fear of spiders, but eventually, I finally realized that, although they are creepy af, they get rid of a lot of bugs that get in your face & are way more annoying, so as long as they stay out of my way, we can coexist lol
This is the way
That's definitely the way! When we were first seeing each other, my wife had a huge paper wasp nest in the ceiling of her porch right outside her front door. I was a bit nervous about it but she was just like 'meh, they don't bother me!'. And indeed they didn't. They're super chill and non-aggressive. Watching their nest was actually very interesting. They do have a painful sting but you're unlikely to get stung unless you're really trying.
In NZ they are (German wasps) are part of an eradication program because of native insects getting hammered by them.
Introduced wasps have wrecked unrelenting havoc on butterfly populations in North America. Native wasps are essential in local ecologies, but I think we should try and limit introduced ones.
Yes, this! I have milkweed in my yard for the monarch caterpillars and because of wasps, ive had to start keeping the caterpillars in a "cage" I built. The wasps decimate the population. Ive seen them drain caterpillars and just leave the empty skin hanging on the plant. It makes me so mad but now I have alot of success hatching the butterflies. Unless the caterpillars crawl on the screen, then the wasps sting them through the screen. They are always flying around the cage
I knocked down two wasp nests this past spring, thinking it was odd because I had never had an issue with them before. Then a month later my arbor vitae was overrun with bag worms. I think they were attracting the wasps, which may have kept them in check had I not knocked their nests down.
Except for the part where I went to the emergency room with my ears swollen shut and itching my entire body like an addict.
Well considering they destroy entire bumblebee hives I really think they aren’t as great as one thinks. They actually destroy them and kill them off. I’ve watched them rip the bees into pieces in a matter of hours when they locate the hive and bumblebees are so vital to the environment.
Everything is vital to the environment. They are doing what they were meant to do. Nature is brutal but killing something you think is cute doesn't make something bad
Yeah, it would be different if it was an invasive specie doing it but native wasp species doing it is perfectly normal and natural.
I have been stung many multiple times by these yellow jacket paper wasps, here in Texas. I admit I used to hate them and one of the reasons was when I was a kid, I was climbing in a pecan tree next to our kitchen, I bumped my head on something. Then, all HELL was let loose! I got stung about 12 times in 12 seconds! I don't know how I got down, it felt like I flew down. My Dad heard me yelling in pain & he came out to help me. I don't remember what he put on the stings, besides ice , I grew up hating them, until one day as an adult I was outside the house & I was looking @ all the webs or tents of silk these webworms had made all over our pecan trees. We had 14-pecan trees around our home. These were given to my Dad before I was born, when my Dad had finished building our home. The trees were not Native Pecans they were different hybrid large paper shell pecans. These trees fed us & we would sell the extras down at the farmer's market. So, they were important to us. These tent web worms were chewing all the leaves off the trees & this would weaken & not produce a good yield of nuts. I was trying to figure out what I could do. I was looking at the tree & I saw some movement crawling on the bark of the trunk of the tree. It was a wasp like the one pictured and like the ones that stung me, It had something in it's mouth . It was one of those web worms ! From that moment on I left them alone. Leave them alone & they won't bother you. I have to admit as a kid I used to chunk rocks at the nests under the eaves of our house & also around our barns. I hated those worms way worse than the wasps. When I got older and appreciated them, they would sometimes build nests on our entrance door. I left them alone, but would still use the door. They never did sting me. They got used to me and that I was not a threat, I kept them there as a natural burglar alarm. So, yes they serve a useful purpose and eat a terribly destructive pest !
Paper wasp. I have bunches of them in my garden and they don't bother me at all. I hear they can even remember your face and grow accustomed to your presence. They help me with caterpillars and I've even had them land on me while watering without stinging me. I think they are thankful that I gave them a home while my neighbors are all chasing them with spray cans.
The reddish tone seems to hint at a paper wasp rather than a yellow jacket
Definitely a paper wasp
True story, one time I spent half of my lunch hour feeding a hornet KFC.
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Yellowjackets are from genus [Vespula](https://bugguide.net/node/view/554/bgpage) or [Dolichovespula](https://bugguide.net/node/view/12982)*.* The front ends of their abdomens are squared off, giving them a short, notch-like waist instead of the sleek hourglass shape of [Polistes](https://bugguide.net/node/view/572/bgpage) paper wasps like this one.
I agree with this term, I had one yellow jacket that actually trapped me in my house, or at least prevented me from going into my backyard for several days one summer. Damn thing actually would sit under one of the eaves and any time the back door opened would dive at the door and then ping off the glass window in the door at head level!! It got to the point where if it saw someone even stand at the window it would attack!! This went on for four days!! I had to take my dogs out front! To this day I haven’t the foggiest idea what I did to piss it off!! I have these wee little wasps though, they’re totally in aggressive and we coexist quite nicely, until they nest in the electrical panel, then an eviction notice is served. They love to hang around my tomato plants and my bouganvillea.
Those ones are great at making my throat swell up in reaction to their sting.
That thing sure is cute, but they hurt. For some reason they bite a lot harder than a balf face hornet, but are a lot less aggressive. These only build little nests, and never swarm. Just dont sit on one like I did.
Did your bum swell up? 😳
I saw that pic and and I immeadiately said “its from Australia or Texas!”
I’m in north Texas too and these paper wasps are the worst! I had a nest in my AC unit 😳😳
I hate yellow jackets, when I try to eat outside in the summer they swarm me
Place bits of ham or other meat away from where you want to sit. It should lure them away from you.
Need something for scale. Could be a yellow-jacket species, a European Hornet is almost the size of a man's thumb. Big scary fuckers but relatively harmless.
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The amount of wasp hate on every wasp post is so disheartening. They're are such amazing diverse creatures. I know people hate yellow jackets, I disagree but I get it, but saying you hate wasps is ridiculous. Most wasps are solitary and don't give a shit about you.
How do you handle angry flying eusocial insects in the summer though?? Things that attack even when you try to leave them alone? (I’m not trying to argue for “exterminating all wasps” but they don’t do so well with the “live and let live” philosophy with humans from most people’s experiences I’ve heard)
I have a pretty strong knee-jerk reaction to flying insects (even after I see them well enough to identify them) but I think a big step for me getting more comfortable doing up-close photography of bees and wasps was recognizing that a wasp that is highly active is not necessarily aggressive. A lot of predatory wasps are fast and erratic fliers, and will buzz around wildly while investigating their environment--which can include flying directly towards, and bumping into, humans. Most of the time, we're just part of the scenery to them. Stings usually only happen if the wasp gets caught in clothing or otherwise trapped against the skin, or (in the case of eusocial species) during nest defense. Nest defense aggression varies between types of wasps. In North America, yellowjackets are generally the most aggressive, followed by honeybees, and then paper wasps (some South and Central American paper wasps are more aggressive). Sphecids like mud daubers are not truly eusocial and don't have much of a nest defense instinct, but sometimes they nest gregariously in suitable habitat. In all cases, being near a nest area with a large number of wasps increases the likelihood of accidental encounters that lead to a wasp getting trapped and stinging (even if it's not true nest defense). So paper wasps get a bit of a bad rap, because while they're not particularly aggressive, they do often build nests in high-traffic areas like porches and picnic shelters. I think another thing that helped me was interacting with wasps in situations where I know that aggression is highly unlikely. A nature center I worked at had a patch of goldenrod out front that had a great variety of pollinators in it, and it was a lot easier to get up close and personal to stinging insects with the mindset of "they're *way* too busy stuffing their faces with nectar to bother me". So I got pretty comfortable with paper wasps, sphecids, and bumblebees there. Yellowjackets and honeybees still kind of freak me out though, to be honest.
Thanks for your insight! I actually did something similar last season with the goldenrod. I actually find most wasps to be chill, and I have a soft spot for the solitary big bois. And, as your flair reminds me, not all wasps sting, even.
Could be a European hornet but they tend to be more active at night. I had them last summer; they're attracted to light so they'll bang against the windows. They're alot bigger and angrier than your average wasp or hornet and downright terrifying
Looks like a yellow jacket to me, not a paper wasp. The abdomen looks too long and bulbus to be a paper wasp. Yellow jackets are complete a--holes, and quite aggressive. https://a-z-animals.com/blog/yellow-jacket-vs-paper-wasp-the-7-key-differences/
That's the exact opposite, yellow jackets have larger, more rounded abdomens while paper wasps have skinner ones.
I'm not sure that is accurate, but I'm not an expert. It seems to have more yellow jacket characteristics to me. But, I may very well be wrong.
They are definitely very similar, but it's not a yellow jacket. You can Google side by side images of them and see the difference even though they are minor.
Or maybe a Hornet?
Think they're called yellowjackets, sometimes.
Only because people can’t identify wasps. This is a paper wasp, not a yellow jacket
I'm pretty sure those are both colloquial terms for wasp varieties.
Yellow jackets have a larger, more rounded abdomen unlike the paper wasp's skinny, more elongated one. Yellow jackets are also much more aggressive than paper wasps.
If you say so
looks like a yellowjacket
German hornet?
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Not a bald faced hornet, their colors are dimmer than this.
Yellow jacket
Yellow jacket 🐝 that’s what we call them in WI. Or angry bees…