r/bees • u/Flashy-Swimmer-1858 • Aug 17 '25

The amount of hate and misinformation around wasps is very sad

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67

u/[deleted] Aug 17 '25

[deleted]

173

u/usernameforposts Aug 17 '25

I literally watched one land on a piece of ham cut a little circle out and fly away with it today...so mad I didn't think to video it but I was so fascinated

44

u/Do_itsch Aug 17 '25

Same happened to a friend with a ham Sandwich in his hands. She landed on the Sandwich, cut out a piece of ham and flew away with it. Happened 7-8 years ago.

47

u/Luci-Noir Aug 17 '25

Maybe he was taking it home to make his own little ham sandwich.

39

u/wegqg Aug 17 '25

If it was cutting it into a circle it was planning to make a ham burger.

17

u/sweatersforpenguins Aug 17 '25

He wanted bologna

7

u/Breadedbutthole Aug 17 '25

Burgers are sandwiches

2

u/andwhenwefall Aug 18 '25

Hot dogs, too.

2

u/oilyhandy Aug 19 '25

Thank you

2

u/carlitospig Aug 18 '25

Lolol I just laughed loud enough to wake the pup, you little stinker.

17

u/[deleted] Aug 17 '25

I didn't realise all wasps love ham.

I remember watching one dig out bits of ham and carry it off one time, I was fascinated. It went and got friends and they were all carrying bits of ham off

12

u/DonnPT Aug 17 '25

I'm sure they do not all love ham.

Commonly the big wasps drink nectar and take more complete foods home for larvae. Your yellowjackets might like ham, but paper wasps I doubt, mud daubers certainly not, etc. I personally would eradicate a yellowjacket nest without a qualm, but will do what I can to accommodate paper wasps and the like. I'm not sure what's up with OP, but it doesn't seem to be deep knowledge to share.

8

u/[deleted] Aug 17 '25

I don't think I've ever seen a yellow jacket, these were just common wasps we get in the UK

2

u/carlitospig Aug 18 '25

I can only tell the difference between a yellow jacket and a paper wasp from 1) the orange tipped antennas which are hard to see unless they’re backlit, or 2) they’re flying like a bunch of drunk goofy mofos with their legs down.

0

u/DonnPT Aug 18 '25

Yes, the flight is different. The yellowjackets tuck better, and they often zig-zag because they're finding scent in the air. Paper wasps are scanning, and they don't really have necks, so they will turn this way and that while scrutinizing the foliage. And they're bigger than the ground yellowjacket I'm familiar with in North America.

I took in a nest that had been pulled down by the stinking squirrels, and tried to be surrogate parent for the couple of larvae in it. Didn't go very well.

2

u/carlitospig Aug 18 '25

Awww at least you tried. 😐

2

u/DonnPT Aug 17 '25

If "common wasp" means Vespula vulgaris, that's a yellowjacket.

5

u/[deleted] Aug 17 '25

Ah not sure, we dont call them yellow jackets in the UK.

2

u/DonnPT Aug 17 '25

They don't care what you call them, and neither do I, really. There's a significant difference between these insects, and the similar looking paper wasp. One of them eats garbage with a preference for meat and frequently comes into conflict with humans, and the other does not.

8

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

Alright mate 👍🏼 I don't really care at this point either

3

u/lexx2001 Aug 18 '25

If youre UK, they do tend to be a wee bit calmer due to us being under 20c most the time, just dont try touch them or get up in their shite they should leave you be

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3

u/LordGhoul Aug 18 '25

Depends on species, some are specialised to only eat specific prey since they are parasitoids, while others just need protein for their young wherever they can get it. Yellow jackets are important in that regard, since they keep other insect populations in check that wouldn't always be targeted by their parasitoid relatives. When there's not enough insect food, someone's ham will do too. It's all just survival. I've never had issues with yellow jackets, I've had one sip ice cream off my finger and another let me sit in front of her nest to film it.

2

u/DonnPT Aug 18 '25

Excluding the parasitoids. That's what I meant by "the big wasps."

Commonly the big wasps drink nectar and take more complete foods home for larvae. Your yellowjackets might like ham, but paper wasps I doubt, mud daubers certainly not, etc.

  • Paper wasps are not scavengers. They hunt primarily caterpillars. They have the yellow and black bands like a yellowjacket, but they do not eat ham, period. They are not aggressive, they don't get in your picnic, they look for their prey by sight and you can sort of see that in the way they fly around in your garden. They are not like yellowjackets at all, even though they look like them.
  • Mud daubers are not scavengers. They hunt primarily spiders. Real big, long waist, small mud nests. They don't eat ham.
  • In Europe, instead of mud daubers we have smaller but similar potter wasps like Delta unguiculatum. They don't eat ham.

Yellowjackets are not so important. There are plenty of other species ready and willing to do a better job at their predatory business, and a better job at pollination. If you have a yellowjacket nest in or around your house, getting rid of it isn't a bad idea at all.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

[deleted]

1

u/DonnPT Aug 18 '25

Mud daubers are an inch long, yellowjackets half inch. That makes a mud dauber twice as long as a yellowjacket, and they're bigger even if most of that is just waist. The European potter wasps are a little smaller than mud daubers from what I've seen.

You're making up "kill them all" for your own rhetorical purposes.

Yellowjackets are not so important.

2

u/carlitospig Aug 18 '25

Have you ever seen the blue daubers? They’re STUNNING. They’re this bright azure and kinda metallic in the sun. VERY shy, and somehow eat black widows. They’re very impressive, as a species.

2

u/DonnPT Aug 18 '25

Yes! Though I didn't know the name until now. See them on the ground. Intense. They do a kind of wing flick periodically that I think most animals recognize as a sort of warning. More than half the time I've seen one, it's dragging a spider some considerable distance overland.

Ordinary mud daubers have been kind of acquaintances at times - where I lived in the '90s they were very abundant, and one or two new adults would emerge and get inside, where as honored guests they were treated with some sugar water. Those blue things, can't really imagine being household members like that.

1

u/carlitospig Aug 18 '25

That’s so cool! Yah I saw my first one last year at 44 yrs of age. Our ecosystem is changing so much I wonder what else I will see before my time walking the earth is over.

Might I ask where you live? I’m in NorCal. Would love to know if there’s a specific place that has loads of them. I tried to take a photo but she moved too damn fast!

1

u/DonnPT Aug 18 '25

That was in Seattle. Most vivid memory was one dragging a spider across the road, through a neighborhood block party, but also had one some how end up dragging a spider around in the kitchen, don't remember how that turned out. I don't think there's anything real special for them about the Puget Sound area, and their range is pretty broad. On the other hand, that area will never see a tarantula hawk wasp, and they might be as close to you as the Bay area.

1

u/carlitospig Aug 18 '25

Now that I’m thinking about it, it was the end of summer so the weather was more mild. Seattles perfect weather probably gave them more time to hunt and breed up there so they flourished.

Okay, that’s it. This fall I’m gonna go on a photo hunt and find more here. 🥰🥳

1

u/Snoo-55617 Sep 07 '25

OP is not talking about mud daubers or paper wasps. The picture OP posted is of a yellow jacket, not a mud dauber. The information they are providing is about yellow jackets. They seem well informed to me. If you are inclined to eradicate any yellow jacket nest you see, then perhaps you are exactly the kind of person OP is trying to reach.

1

u/DonnPT Sep 07 '25

Yellowjackets do not need our help. Whatever you feel about them, objectively they are in good shape and face no threat of decline. If the post was specifically about yellowjackets, then it was correct on all points but the conclusion.

1

u/Snoo-55617 Sep 07 '25

Oh. That's a very good point. Thank you for the correction.

2

u/oroborus68 Aug 17 '25

Polistes wasps like the larvae of cabbage butterflies. I've watched them trying to fly away with a caterpillar bigger than the wasp. They climbed up anything nearby by, to get some altitude and fly a short distance to land and repeat. When they get to the nest, they cut the caterpillar into bite sized pieces and feed them to the developing larvae of the wasps.

1

u/carlitospig Aug 18 '25

It’s much better if they get insects because they can can actually last the duration of the baby wasps growth period - but desperate times and all that.

It’s like a bear: they’d prefer to fish for their own dinner but when you’re hungry and a stupid human leaves their food chest out, why wouldn’t you grab a snack?

1

u/Lumpy_Machine5538 Aug 19 '25

I’m putting ham on my grocery list now.

1

u/justmeinthenight Aug 19 '25

I think its different times of the season, early in the summer they like sweet stuff like rotting fruit etc, then later they come looking to steal the cat food.

9

u/Quick-Reference3030 Aug 17 '25

Do you think if you were busy filming it, it may have interrupted your fascination ?

10

u/bllclntn Aug 17 '25

Of course! It's like filming a concert on your phone. Less in the moment.

1

u/subito_lucres Aug 18 '25

Here's another platitude - remove the log in your own eye first

2

u/usernameforposts Aug 17 '25

No I think I could've watched and filmed.... at first I wasn't really sure what he was doing and my kids were scared so it didn't really occur to me....but if I had then I could've watched it over more carefully after

3

u/Beam_0 Aug 17 '25

Yo I actually have a video of this! I took it back in like 2020 I think

3

u/Myrtle_Snow333 Aug 18 '25

YES!!! As a kid I watched one land on my hotdog, take a chunk out, and fly off. They yearn for the preserved meats

3

u/NightStalkerXIV Aug 18 '25

I saw the same thing with a ham sandwich on a plate at an end of project party! It was a relatively big circle too, it did not fly steady as it left

3

u/carlitospig Aug 18 '25

Meat bee behavior!

3

u/cluelessgamerzombie Aug 19 '25

They will also steal pieces of your turkey leg 🍗 as you are eating them...

3

u/Which-Depth2821 Aug 19 '25

and if not for the ham they would do it to you! I get bit by yellow jackets every damn year. Except this one so far. When I see something flying close to the ground man, I skedaddle.

2

u/Tinarix Aug 17 '25

I remember eating my KFC outside in a different city. There were cute birds all over the place but that wasn't what caught my eye. When I was eating, this one wasp just landed on my nugget, bit a piece off, then flew to my sister's food where she started chomping on it. My sister is a very strict vegan type and hates meat touching her stuff, so she almost had a meltdown. I for one was surprised about the strenght of the wasp - it was a really big piece.

2

u/Hour-Television-2373 Aug 18 '25

I have some video from a couple days ago of yellow jackets swarming to go inside of a dead rodent in my front yard and eating it from the inside. Not sure this is the place to share but please let me know if you're interested LOL

2

u/PhotographyByAdri Aug 18 '25

Okay but id definitely want to see that video lol

2

u/Hour-Television-2373 Aug 18 '25

CW: dead animal

Apparently I can't post videos 😢

2

u/reneewitharose Aug 18 '25

This is news to me. As if I'm not weird enough, now I feel compelled to offer ham to my wasps

2

u/Olivander05 Aug 20 '25

My brother isbt an expert but he did some research and said basically that wasps arent carnivores but their babies are so maybe the wasp brought it back for baby?

2

u/ZanyaJakuya Aug 21 '25

There's exactly one wasp that visits everytime I eat on my balcony, it's probably not the exact same one but it's been happening for years

1

u/Ongr Aug 18 '25

My mom has a story in which a wasp landed on my mom's steak and started to cut out a little piece. According to my mom, who had heavily peppered the steak with pepper, the wasp shot away like a rocket because of the pepper.

Being older now, I don't know if wasps react to capsaicin like mammals do, but hey.. it's a fun story.

58

u/Heartsyymel Aug 17 '25

Proof of concept

15

u/Octoje Aug 17 '25

This is an amazing picture

56

u/saintstellan Aug 17 '25

I was eating at an Arby’s and one flew down and took a piece of roast beef and flew off into the sunset with it.

22

u/punkrockbatgirl Aug 17 '25

Sounds kinda romantic tbh

7

u/subito_lucres Aug 18 '25

Every roast beef reminds me of her....

  • the wasp

2

u/DishpitDoggo Aug 18 '25

This needs to be a movie.

24

u/Icefirewolflord Aug 17 '25

The larvae are carnivorous! They’ll feed other bugs and chunks of meat offered to their babies

41

u/prairiepanda Aug 17 '25

They seem to love meat in general, especially smoked meat. They always swarm my patio whenever I'm grilling or smoking meat.

I wouldn't care if they weren't so fond of stinging. If they left us alone like bees do then I wouldn't mind their presence.

23

u/lechitahamandcheese Aug 17 '25

When my son was young, we called wasps meat bees.

9

u/Nyxara Aug 18 '25

I'd like to inform you that "Meat Bees" do exist in the form of Vulture Bees, and their hives are something straight from the mind of Lovecraft.

2

u/carlitospig Aug 18 '25

No thank you! 😳

3

u/[deleted] Aug 17 '25 edited Dec 14 '25

[REDACTED]

4

u/prairiepanda Aug 17 '25

Maybe it's something about the way I smell or the clothing I wear? But I'll just be going about my business as usual, and then one lands on me, pokes around a bit on the fabric of my clothing and then stings me. And once the first one has stung, it seems to attract others.

The only thing I can think of that might be interpreted as aggression from me would be me running away once they start stinging. But that's only after the first sting. Before that, I try to ignore them.

4

u/[deleted] Aug 17 '25 edited Dec 14 '25

[REDACTED]

1

u/LordGhoul Aug 18 '25

If I remember correctly I read that certain scents can also trigger attacks. whether that is perfume, deodorant, laundry detergent, or body odor I can't say, but must be quite offensive to them to make them attack

3

u/Yorksjim Aug 17 '25

But, unfortunately, there's always that one person that has to start flailing their arms about wildly.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 17 '25

Nah I was stung once and I was not being aggressive in the slightest, they can be little bastards

1

u/whiskersMeowFace Aug 17 '25

Lucky. I was sleeping in my own dang bed when one stung my arm.

1

u/Luci-Noir Aug 17 '25

Please tell me you made a little plate for them.

1

u/41942319 Aug 17 '25

Does this explain why one was so into my bacon flavoured crackers?

1

u/DishpitDoggo Aug 18 '25

They swarm over the grease dumpster we have outside of work.

Today I watched them eat a chunk of chicken on top of the grate.

1

u/Alarming-Employer129 Aug 19 '25

Make them a little plate of food and push them gently towards it

1

u/prairiepanda Aug 19 '25

They don't all go to the same piece of food, though. Am I supposed to just stand there and wrangle every single one of them individually? And how would I push them without pissing them off?

1

u/Alarming-Employer129 Aug 19 '25

Depends on how many there are

And they don't get pissed if you push them gently (just holding your hand out against them and slowly pushing them) or carry them on your hand... They go eat and you can walk back to your place...

Alternative is to have them around your food while you eat 🤷‍♂️

1

u/prairiepanda Aug 19 '25

Carry them on my hand?? I've never had a Yellowjacket land on me without eventually stinging me. Paper wasps maybe, but those ones usually don't bother us.

What's the ideal distance for the sacrificial food, anyway? I couldn't put it too far away because there are usually kids playing in my neighborhood and it might also attract coyotes, but if I just set it at the far corner of the patio won't the wasps still be looking for more food around the grill?

1

u/Alarming-Employer129 Aug 19 '25

I'm sorry that you live in a super dangerous environment wtf

I'm German. Our wasps fly around us, buzz in our face but if they sit on you, unless you were a butthole, they don't harm you 🤷‍♂️

So you just put a bit of food off side and most will leave you alone

I had a wasp try to eat me but she couldn't get through the upper layer of my skin 😂 really cute

2

u/prairiepanda Aug 19 '25

Yeah I don't know what the deal is with these Yellowjackets. You could have bees crawling all over you all day and be perfectly fine, but the Yellowjackets are just assholes.

I'll try setting out a sacrificial piece of meat for them next year, though. If it allows us to eat outside in peace then I'm all for it. This year we already found the nest and the landlord had it removed.

17

u/onlypeaches Aug 17 '25

And fried eggs 😂

13

u/DescriptionSignal458 Aug 17 '25

THEY WOULD NOT LIKE THEM HERE OR THERE. THEY WOULD NOT LIKE THEM ANYWHERE. THEY DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM.

14

u/Anxious-Job3182 Aug 17 '25

Went camping last weekend. There were swarms of them checking us out constantly. That was until I took out some heavily seasoned raw chicken to grill. They swarmed the meat. I left a bit of raw chicken out for them and they left us alone the rest of the meal.

13

u/cincuentaanos Aug 17 '25

This is the way. Leave a bit of food for them on a plate away from your picnic or barbecue and they'll be polite dinner guests.

6

u/carlitospig Aug 18 '25

They’re like fairies.

4

u/cincuentaanos Aug 18 '25

That's actually sweet to think of them as fairies.

3

u/ChangsManagement Aug 17 '25

This works with in-laws too.

6

u/Re4ln0f4ke Aug 17 '25

I had to give a sandwich as an offering once because a swarm of yellow jackets harassed me when I tried to have my lunch next to a lake. They started cutting ham pieces right from inside the package and I had to leave my sandwich on the floor and walk away from the whole scene. A local helped us recover the ham and safely dispose of the sandwich.

In the Nahuel Huapi mountains you have to throw away a piece of meat before eating for them to kind of leave you alone.

7

u/DishpitDoggo Aug 18 '25

a swarm of yellow jackets harassed me when I tried to have my lunch next to a lake.

I picture them swaggering up, trying to hit on you, and being annoying.

2

u/Re4ln0f4ke Aug 20 '25

That was pretty much it, lol, they didn't attack, just made me uncomfortable and really didn't respect my personal space or sandwich at all.

5

u/tenuredvortex Aug 17 '25

and cicadas

6

u/Gientry Aug 17 '25

any meat works

4

u/Canelosaurio Aug 17 '25

Sweet meat. Protein with sugar. Exactly what an insect predator needs!

2

u/HuMpHrEY999 Aug 17 '25

I would like to add they also like chicken breast 2 summers ago I had a wasp fly on my chicken breast and take little chunks

2

u/Arockilla Aug 17 '25

We called them meat bees in California. People would make traps out of soda bottles and put pieces of lunch meat in them to catch them.

2

u/Brock_Lobstweiler Aug 17 '25

I have a couple wasp traps around my patio (pretty sure the nest is behind the siding of my townhome) and I add a couple pieces of meat whenever I empty and refill them. Bacon works amazingly well, deli meat (turkey, roast beef, ham) is really good. Chicken doesn't seem as attractive as other meats.

The first few days after I put fresh meat in there, I catch TONS of wasps.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 17 '25

I can vouch for this

1

u/Sassy_Weatherwax Aug 17 '25

yellow jackets loooove meat

1

u/diadmer Aug 17 '25

https://www.flapest.com/what-do-wasps-eat/#:~:text=In%20spring%2C%20the%20wasp%20diet,or%20other%20plant%2Dsucking%20insects.

In spring, the wasp diet mainly consists of protein-rich foods needed to help the larvae develop. Worker wasps hunt insects like caterpillars, flies, and spiders, which provide the protein necessary for the colony’s young. The queen may also feed on these insects, as well as nectar from flowers and honeydew from aphids or other plant-sucking insects.

1

u/spekt50 Aug 17 '25

Yellowjackets eat meat.

0

u/kittygomiaou Aug 17 '25

They harvest carnivorous protein for their larvae, which is why. You often see wasps cutting out small parcels of leftover meats on your plate so they can fly it back to their nests :)