Wasps

bower · October 8, 2019

Yeah those yellow jackets are really nasty! There are a lot around my brother's yard (urban forest) and one of them got into my sleeve when I was clearing up brush there late this summer. Half dozen stings and they were giving me misery for a week.

Yellow jackets love to winter under leaves or bark - when I was burning birch I always had to carefully inspect or strip any loose bark before bringing wood in the house. Tons of them.

The paper wasps look really similar but are not nearly as aggressive. They insisted on nesting near the house one summer and finally I just had to work on my nerves and tolerate them. They were really well behaved overall. I got one sting - happened to have a smoke in the yard one day while I was looking over the tomato plants. I reckon they were alarmed at the smoke and thought I was planning an attack on them.

There's a lot of great info in this thread I did not know about, like wearing red (and/or not dark!) clothes. Time to get myself a little red riding hood or such.

October 8, 2019	#17
bower Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Newfoundland, Canada Posts: 6,794	Yeah those yellow jackets are really nasty! There are a lot around my brother's yard (urban forest) and one of them got into my sleeve when I was clearing up brush there late this summer. Half dozen stings and they were giving me misery for a week. Yellow jackets love to winter under leaves or bark - when I was burning birch I always had to carefully inspect or strip any loose bark before bringing wood in the house. Tons of them. The paper wasps look really similar but are not nearly as aggressive. They insisted on nesting near the house one summer and finally I just had to work on my nerves and tolerate them. They were really well behaved overall. I got one sting - happened to have a smoke in the yard one day while I was looking over the tomato plants. I reckon they were alarmed at the smoke and thought I was planning an attack on them. There's a lot of great info in this thread I did not know about, like wearing red (and/or not dark!) clothes. Time to get myself a little red riding hood or such.