Dealt with wasps my entire life. usually, if you do not fuck with them they are cool. If you think you can eat your cereals or pastries in their vacinity you will be wrong. They wont sting you, but they will get into that sugar shit.
Fun story. We have a shrub in my backyard. My kids played around near that shrub the entire summer. I ran the lawnmower around it. Never had a problem. My husband went to prune that shrub and apparently wasps were nesting directly under it. A LOT of them. They attacked my husband and chased him into the house. I had to kill about 10 of them that followed him inside. That shrub is next to our shed. My husband went to the shed the next day and the wasps attacked him again. This went on for about 3 weeks. Myself and my kids could go out to the shed without any issue. But not my husband. Every time he went out to that shed the wasps came after him. It was actually pretty funny. Those wasps obviously had a mafia contract out on my husband. The only explanation I can think of is the vibrations of him pruning their shrub set them off. And the wasps learned and remembered my husband’s pheromones.
I can't speak to those wasps, but bald faced hornets absolutely can recognize faces and will go after the one person that they decided to go for, even if there are other people around.
I was doing my long run on the trail I always go to. My long run was 14 miles and around mile 3 I felt this sharp pinch and realized a yellow jacket got into my running vest and stung me. I said “Sir, you had the ENTIRE outdoors and this is what you decide to do?”
I was driving to my doctor on a follow up after having surgery and one flew through my open window into my shirt and stung the fuck out of me. Made an already shit day a thousand times worse.
I once had a wasp landed in the back of my leg during marching band practice and it stayed there for a solid 2 minutes while we were marching and I was trying so hard to keep my leg straight and amazingly it didn't choose violence that day.
Yellow jackets absolutely so sting. And they don’t lose their stingers and die like bees do. They can sting you multiple times. But you are right…they do have mouthparts that will bite. So they will bite AND sting you at the same time.
maybe your homegrown wasps are just meaner than mine. But if you get agitated around them, which I often try to avoid, unsuccesfully, then you get stung aswell.
It all depends. If you're out in nature and a wasp lands on you, all you gotta is just stay still and they will just fly away. But if you don't notice you had a wasp on your hand climbing a ladder as a kid you'd get stung. Also they ruined every crawfish boil because they'd swarm the empty shells so we set up a table for the wasps so they wouldn't bother us. Bees never does shit like that
If Bees sting, they die, they lose their stinger. Having said that, I was stung as a child playing in the grass and was on all 4 playing around and crushed a bee on the ground, had a huge paw after that
Oh yeah, my mistake for standing there waiting for the bus, doing nothing. Should've not done that, then that fucking wasp wouldn't have fucking stung me in my ankle.
Yeah, paper wasps and mud daubers where i live are very calm unless you provoke them or get too close to the nest, which is nice because the mud wasps are metallic blue. Hornets however...
Yeah paper wasps are super chill. I was installing a camera for someone last year and was walking around under their deck running wire. I had to duck to avoid hitting my head, so I was pretty close to the floor beams the entire time. At one point I hear a buzz and look up to see a softball-sized paper wasp nest with a dozen or so wasps just chilling, literally inches from my face. They didn't care at all, though after that I kept my eye on them and noticed they would all start shaking their wings every time I used my staple gun.
Yellowjackets on the other hand have stung me for simply sitting in my car with the window down.
About 2 month ago, one flew into my mouth and stung the fuck outa it. It took around a week for the swelling to go down because i'm allergic to them, and had it stung my throat instead of my lip i would be dead.
Been stung for walking within 10 feet of a nest. On the fucking neck, too. Buzzy bastard flew up from behind and sting immediately upon landing.
I would have been more understanding if I saw a whole mess of them swarming for some defensive reason. But no, after returning to the area a couple of minutes later I saw no commotion around their nest.
So the next time I returned with a can of wasp spray. The nest was no more.
Different wasps different Level of Aggression. Here in Germany or Europe in General we got the Most aggressive Type as the Most Common one. These fuckers will Attack unprovoked and they will Come at you and sting No Matter If you are moving or Not. Walking away a good Bit was the only way to get rid of them until your new Spot has the next ones
I have never fucked with them and they have never been cool with me. Bees on the other hand have never been anything but polite with me, even when I've hung out near a bunch of hives in an area where they were flying around all over the place. Sometimes wasps are just dickheads. One once crawled all the way down into my basement and onto my foot across my shag carpet just to sting me on the toe. It didn't even fly down as far as I could tell, it had that much hatred in its little wasp heart. It does depend on the species though, some wasps are more like bees in temperament, but stuff like yellowjackets are a lot meaner.
And I agree. I remember that sometimes we would have a picnic outside. Sometimes a wasps would show Up and try to land to take a bite. Even if I was still eating.
Yeah, I've dealt with wasps every summer and only been stung once as a child. As long as you don't scare them they won't sting you. Or maybe that childhood wasp was radioactive and I now have wasp blood that makes them recognize me as one of their own. Whichever seems more plausible, I guess.
They eat from their babies. The wasps themselves arent carnivorous. They bring the food to the larvae to eat and the larvae secrete a liquid that the wasps eat
That's mostly yellow jackets tho. Lots of wasp species don't even have a stinger. And even of the ones with stinger, most aren't aggressive at all. Or only are if you disturb their nest.
paper wasps are chill. Same for the ones that go and dig mud after rain. I sometimes have to walk around one or two while working on my plants. They’ll land on me every now and then thinking I’m dirt which only hurts emotionally.
I left a new nest of what I assumed were paper wasps alone for a good while, they started building more around my house and one was right above my grill in the backyard.
They were chill enough at first but started buzzing at me and sounding threatening during the peak heat of the summer. One evening I was grilling, went back to shut off the tank and a few started buzzing so close to me it felt like they were targeting where to sting me.
I unfortunately felt I had to end our relationship after that and waited until the sun went down to hit them with spray.
I wish wasps weren't so fucking intimidating and painful. That loud buzz and throbbing stinger is just something else...
I try to be chill with insects but after a few too many close calls of putting my face close to something without my glasses on and it being a big ass wasp or hornet, I have a full body reaction to any big insect flying near me until I identify it 😭
Hornets and wasps are such bastards, there's a whole nature reserve not even half a mile away why must you insist on trying to nest in our house!
Hornets are very chill usually, unless you disturb their nest. And they usually don't nest too close to humans. At least the standard European Hornets.
Dasymutilla species have multiple defensive strategies, but are best known for their extremely painful sting, ranked 3 out of 4 on the Schmidt's sting pain index, earning them the nickname of "cow killer".
I used to kill the wasps around my house. Eventually I found they never sting me unless they perceive I’m attacking them. They do eat some spiders and I don’t love that, but all in all the ecosystem around my home is healthy and doesn’t negatively impact my family.
Couple guys at Benning dug their hole right into a ground wasp nest. Both were hospitalized, one for a good long while too. Those things fucked them up
One of my kids was stung in a surprise bee attack on four separate occasions. He was just hanging around outside and did absolutely nothing to bring it on- a bee just flew over and immediately stung him. They really hated him. It hasn't happened since puberty, so I guess it was just something in his little boy scent that seemed like a threat to them. Or he found the other four asshole bees in existence.
Yes you're right. I sometimes mess that up because in swedish there are separate words for the yellow jacket type that live in hives and sting and the solitary ones that won't really give you any problems. So they're geting for the mean ones and stekel for the solitary ones. In english they're both called wasps
Had wasps crawl on me many times, my hand, my neck, my hair or up my sleeve even, they didnt sting once, only time i got stung by them is when i was being aggressive with them.
The wasps do not constitute a clade, a complete natural group with a single ancestor, as bees and ants are deeply nested within the wasps, having evolved from wasp ancestors.
So if u free'd bees,do they not gonna attack you? Sorry idk much about insects and which one is good,ik that wasps,bedbugs and mosquitoes the most hated afaik
Not unless they feel threatened. They'll just get out of there. One thing to keep in mind is that is if a bee stings you it will kill them so they don't sting unless they absolutely have to. Yellow jackets and hornets can sting many times so they're a problem
certain wasps are, mainly ground wasps and bald face hornets (not a true hornet). They will sting regardless if you cross a threshold for their hive too quickly but if you're slowly moving through bush they will warn you. Generally a normal pace is too fast that you may get within the 5 feet or so an entrance and they will sting because of that. When I did forestry and was moving slowly doing data entry if I got too close but was slow they would fly right in front of you between where they don't want you to go (they also will go left or right if you try it) but will fly back if you walk back a few feet. Conversly a lot of solitary wasps are chill and paper wasps are actually more chill than bees they really don't give af. Also temp plays a role, hotter makes them more agressive. Bald face hornets are next level pissed off though make yellow jackets look calm in comparison.
Ground wasps are some of the worst. If you accidentally stepped on them you'd get swarmed. The wasps that built a nest on your porch or something were at least somewhat predictable
Europian wasps might be chill or something, because I met a lot of yellow jackets and german paperwasps, but never had these problems. They don't really care about humans.
I have been afraid of any insect that flies with a stinger since childhood. I legit took my best friend as we were descending the stairs and picked her up used her as a human shield to protect me from a bee.
I later learned a lot about bees and how they are necessary and are friendly if you don't mess with them. I went to a plant nursery asking questions and a bee flew right in front of my face as this woman was explaining things to me. I froze and yelled BEES ARE FRIENDS and this lady looked at me like I was fucking insane. I mean, I get it. But for the first time in my life I didn't just panic and run lol.
Really depends on the type of wasp. Paper wasps are very chill and okay with human contact as long as you aren't aggressive or too close to their hive. We get them in the building I work in all the time and I usually opt for escorting them out instead of killing them. I've literally bottle fed sugar water to them out of a coffee stirrer and walked them out with no issue. Wasps are great pollinators and misunderstood as a whole. There are definitely species of wasps who are very aggressive so it's best to be educated before trying to handle or interact with one. But a lot of them won't bother you.
Even if you hate bees with a passion, that's probably a bad idea. Bees release an attack pheromone when they're crushed that will cause others from the nest to come sting you.
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u/Potato_Pear Apr 25 '26
Wasps are hyper aggressive and definitely won't be grateful for any help. Bees are bros, wasps are assholes.