"Bad" wasps?

[urbpan]

While attending a presentation on our beehives (see next post) I noticed this yellow jacket nest. Well, the first thing I noticed was yellow jacket workers flying into an old desk that was being stored outside for no good reason I could think of. I carefully slid a panel back and took the above picture. Yup, yellow jackets. Their round paper nests are pretty distinctive, and they love to build them in man made cavities, like in wall voids, ramshackle wooden sheds, and old desks that are stored outside for no good reason.

Whenever I see a new object like a utility box or playground equipment appear in my areas of stewardship, I examine it for openings which wasps will exploit to make nests within. (Also if they have gaps on the ground that lead to cavities that will encourage mice to enter, or open structures up high that house sparrows will use as platforms for nests.) This is a pretty small nest, with only one comb of paper cells. As the summer goes on, the wasps will add layers of combs, each cell serving as a nursing compartment for a new worker. Mature yellow jacket nests will have several thousand workers or more.

Yellow jackets are troublesome wasps because they like to nest near humans, ferociously defend their nests by stinging, and can sting multiple times each. They are attracted to human garbage--meat early in the season and then liquid sugar later in the season. Without humans they would feed their larvae insects and meat scavenged from carcasses, while the adults would make do with flower nectar and the juices of fallen fruit. In nature, they are pollinators, insect controllers, and cleaners of refuse. However, humans have obliged yellow jackets with a bounty of carrion (hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken fingers) and liquid sugar (soda, ice cream, and ketchup) exactly during the summer and autumn months when the wasps are looking for it. We have turned them from beneficial insects into pests (or monsters).

Yellow jacket venom (as well as the venom from other social wasps) is similar enough to the venom of honeybees that those who are allergic to one group have a 30-50 percent chance of being allergic to the other. Yellow jackets are more dangerous because each worker can sting multiple times, and they are far more likely to sting than any kind of bee, and most other wasps.


The queen is on the left, a bit bigger than a honeybee. A worker is on the right, much smaller than a honeybee.

Comments

[elainetyger.livejournal.com]

So how did you get rid of these little buggers? just get the desk out of there? or did you kill them yourself?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I blasted them with aerosol insecticide. The desk is still being stored outside for no good reason.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Yellow jackets are the only wasps I don't like, probably because they are the only ones that go out of their way to bother me.

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

the latest caustic Soda podcast might be of interest to you too :)

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed hearing wirrrn talk on that podcast, but the other hosts sounded like irritating morning Deejays to me.

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

Really? Well, I suppose there's some resemblance. I find them far more entertaining than any commercial radio DJs I've had to listen to, but then I used to listen to Triple J, back when one of the hosts was a mathematician, etc.

[wirrrn.livejournal.com]

Aww. Poor wasps.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Indeed.