Posted on 09/07/2013 11:00:32 PM PDT by BenLurkin
"Drunk and jobless" wasps could be on their way to a barbecue near you and be warned - they're bold and ready to attack you.
(Excerpt) Read more at mirror.co.uk ...
“It felt a bit like a religious experience! ;) “
So you realized your inner WASP(white anglo-saxon protestant”ness”)
Yellow jackets, hornets and wasps find a niche in nature that complements that of the honey bees and bumble bees.
Yes the yellow jackets and hornets are drunk. That’s a good thing. The yeasts that are essential to fermentation (beer, wine, alcohol, bread) can not survive winter in the open. They survive in the guts of these insects. In the spring each year the yeasts are distributed by hornets and their like as they visit various fruits, grains and vegetables.
Yellow jackets can go extinct as far as I am concerned. I hate those suckers. When ever I find a ground nest I wait til dark, then pour gasoline down the hole. Just one touch of gas kills them, but I enjoy watching the whoosh of flame coming from the hole after I have touched it off.
Had a nest inside the roof portion of a bay window. I cut a piece of “No Pest Strip” and stuck it in the crack they were using. 24 hours later, all gone, even the ones outside.
If you hit a very large yelow jacket nest with gasoline there can be unintended consequences. There are often multiple entrances, flame can shoot out of all of them, causing grass fires well away from where you’re standing, or igniting other vegetation, even structures. Sometimes they’ll fly out on fire, which makes the risk of igniting something else greater. They can also sometimes explode, not sure why but it’s spectacular, shooting flame, even pitching dirt up into the air at the main cavity of the nest. Don’t do it in dry weather or too near a house is my suggestion.
I saw an interesting documentary about Japanese honeybees. Apparently, Japanese honeybees will attack Japanese hornets, but the introduced European honeybees don’t have that instinct and are easy prey for the hornets.
Before I lived in Japan, I had never seen hornets that size. Their nests are prized ornaments there.
They’re a good two to three inches long. Two would come close to filling the palm of your hand. Their stingers alone are over a quarter inch, feels like being hit with a nail gun filled with red hot nails or so I’ve been told. Never had the displeasure of tangling with one, don’t ever want to.
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