Full-Frame Great Banded Furrow Bee

[Orsonneke]

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[Dean Wilson]

When I read "Furrow" and "Bee" I think of our local predatory aggressive wasp: the Yellowjacket. They will attack and their stinger is pointed and not barbed, so they can sting multiple times without losing their stinger.

 

[Grumps]

When I read "Furrow" and "Bee" I think of our local predatory aggressive wasp: the Yellowjacket. They will attack and their stinger is pointed and not barbed, so they can sting multiple times without losing their stinger.

In a partial defence of wasps (and, more generally, hymenopera). Or a bit of a 'what if'.

Are stings modified ovipositors?

Or.

Are ovipositors modified stings?

(As far as I know, it is 'female' thing. Male bees & wasps have never developed ovipositors or stings. When it comes to social bees and wasps, the male gets one opportunity and his family jewels get ripped off/out as part of mating. I am happy to be corrected if wrong.)

 

[Dean Wilson]

In a partial defence of wasps (and, more generally, hymenopera). Or a bit of a 'what if'.

Are stings modified ovipositors?

Or.

Are ovipositors modified stings?

(As far as I know, it is 'female' thing. Male bees & wasps have never developed ovipositors or stings. When it comes to social bees and wasps, the male gets one opportunity and his family jewels get ripped off/out as part of mating. I am happy to be corrected if wrong.)

Stingers are modified ovipositors, not the other way around, as the ancestral and primary organ is the ovipositor, a tube-like structure used by female insects to deposit eggs. In a specific group of insects (ants, bees, and stinging wasps), the egg-laying organ evolved into a defensive weapon and venom-delivery system.

 

[SwampGrizz]

All I know is they hurt like hell. As someone who has spent a big portion of my career in the woods, I can tell you that there is nothing like a wasp/yellowjacket/hornet sting. I am far more terrified of those insects than I am of a snake. I figure the snake is just doing his job, and I’ll do mine. He will go his way, and I’ll go mine. Not so with the insects, particularly the yellowjacket. They have the attitude that one of us is going to wind up dead. It’s not just the amazing pain of the sting, it’s the sheer terror of knowing that you’re probably standing on their nest, and they are pissed. You know what’s coming next, and you literally go berserk trying to get away. You can hurt yourself trying to get away, and you’re ruined for the rest of the day. A fly lands on you and you go berserk all over again. My brother in law saw me get stung one time, and he said that he had never seen a fat man move that fast.

 

[Grumps]

All I know is they hurt like hell. As someone who has spent a big portion of my career in the woods, I can tell you that there is nothing like a wasp/yellowjacket/hornet sting. I am far more terrified of those insects than I am of a snake. I figure the snake is just doing his job, and I’ll do mine. He will go his way, and I’ll go mine. Not so with the insects, particularly the yellowjacket. They have the attitude that one of us is going to wind up dead. It’s not just the amazing pain of the sting, it’s the sheer terror of knowing that you’re probably standing on their nest, and they are pissed. You know what’s coming next, and you literally go berserk trying to get away. You can hurt yourself trying to get away, and you’re ruined for the rest of the day. A fly lands on you and you go berserk all over again. My brother in law saw me get stung one time, and he said that he had never seen a fat man move that fast.

Disturbing a nest is one way of getting unwanted attention. The trick is not to do such.

‘I feel motherly towards them’: the nature reserve manager sharing her office with a wasp nest

Eilish Rothney’s first instinct was to get rid of the wasps entering her converted shipping container in Norfolk. Now she enjoys their constant hum

www.theguardian.com

Wasps are wonderful predators of other insects. A lot of which are considered 'pests' by gardenes, etc. Their grubs need that protein to grow.

 

[SwampGrizz]

I would get along with them just fine if they weren’t so damn irritable. To be fair, if somebody came and stood on my house, I would be pretty pissed too. All things in nature have value and a purpose, and I don’t go out of my way to do them or any other creature harm, but I’m not going to live with them.
With respect to the lady that lived with the wasps, those aren’t the type of red wasp we have around here, and I can assure her from practical experience that their bite is FAR worse than a mosquito bite. I’m glad to hear they eat other pests, but so do dragonflies, and they have a much better attitude.

 

[Grumps]

I would get along with them just fine if they weren’t so damn irritable. To be fair, if somebody came and stood on my house, I would be pretty pissed too. All things in nature have value and a purpose, and I don’t go out of my way to do them or any other creature harm, but I’m not going to live with them.
With respect to the lady that lived with the wasps, those aren’t the type of red wasp we have around here, and I can assure her from practical experience that their bite is FAR worse than a mosquito bite. I’m glad to hear they eat other pests, but so do dragonflies, and they have a much better attitude.

My personal experience says a wasp sting (in the UK) is painful and not like a mozzie bite at all. Mozzie bites are irritating (but the aftermath of a wasp sting can be as well, depending on the individual's metabolism/immune responses). Cleg/horsefly/deerfly bites fall somewhere in between (again, the individual's immune response can play a part).

Of the three wasp nests I've directly dealt with (or mostly left alone/avoided - two in bird boxes, one in an outbuilding) two have succumbed to natural predation/infections/negative environmental affects (i.e. the nest died out of natural causes before producing any over wintering queens). The other I 'dealt with' and was terminated. Hoiwever given the subsequent experience of the other two I do feel a bit guilty. And, yes I did get stung during that.

(Red wasps - either of these two? Or both? Polistes rubiginosus. Polistes carolina. They are a little bit larger than Vespula vulgaris - the most common UK species of social wasp. But we do also get Vespula rufa, whose vernacular is red wasp. Just to add to the confusion )

 

[SwampGrizz]

Grumps,
You are exactly right. I am referring to polistes rubiginosus, and polistes carolina, commonly known around here as the Red Paper Wasp. There is also another flavor of them called the Guinea Wasp, a much smaller but equally as potent insect. Don’t know the Latin name for those. I will have to say that the wasps seem to be less aggressive than the yellowjackets. That’s not to say they won’t sting the mud out of you, but they seem to only follow you maybe ten yards or so from their nest, and then return. Not so with a yellowjacket. They will attack much further.

As far as destroying a nest, I tend to be a live and let live kind of guy. As I said earlier, they are just doing their job. I would make the assumption that they play a role in pollination as well as a bee does, so I’m not going on a search and destroy mission. The only exceptions to that rule is if they make a nest right where I live or work, the same as a venomous snake. We are not made to live in close proximity with each other.

You mentioned horseflies and deerflies. Don’t know what a cleg is. Must be a UK thing. While not as vicious as wasps/yellowjackets, they will still raise a whelp. I have worked in some areas where we had to go get some beekeepers bonnets just to keep the deerflies off of us. They will drive you crazy. I think that our Canadian brethren have much the same issue with black flies, from what I have heard. The great outdoors is not for the faint of heart.