The Sting of Yellowjackets

The Sting of Yellowjackets

    Call them what you will --yellowjackets, wasps, hornets-- for some reason I have always (well, at least for the past decade or so) been fascinated by these members of the properly titled hymenopteran Vespidae family (think scooters for in Europe, hornets are part of the Vespa group, while here in the states the common paper wasp belongs to the genus Pilistes); and all of this despite my being highly allergic to the creatures (yes, I do carry Epipens with me); I can easily put up with the swelling and the stinging, all of which is no big deal unless one of those stings happens to be on my throat (as my doctor pointed out) in which case I would slowly feel as if I had a boa constrictor was closing in on its prey (which in that case would be me).  But still, getting close to these brightly colored insects is a marvel of both nature's beauty and nature's passivity (yes wasps are surprisingly passive, revealing several postures such as standing on their rear legs, flying nearby you, or beating their wings at a faster clip, all well ahead of a sting)...and did I mention that it is only the females that sting?  Hmmm.  No, I am far from an expert or even a biologist on wasps...merely an allergic observer.

    One hot day a few years ago, I put out a fairly flat tray on our deck railing and filled it halfway with sugar water, leaving enough room to get out for the poor rascals that would fall into the mix.  And soon they all came, everything from bees to ants, wasps to who knows what (it looked like a large black hornet), and all of them let me observe them drinking and thirstily-appreciating this peaceful watering hole.  Not one creature bothered the other, no shoving one another out of the way, no getting into fights; and yet, the tray was nearly covered with bugs of all sorts.  A few days later, in an effort to dilute the solution in the tray and rescue those stuck in the sugary tar (for some, I was too late), one yellowjacket simply hovered nearby until my job was complete.   Which is not to say that I haven't been stung; indeed, attempting to move a small (as in one-inch-size) nest that was well underway, a yellowjacket hovered, flew by me a few times, and when I actually made a motion to move it, lightly touched my arm, as light as a fruit fly, giving me a dab then another, all within the space of a second or two.  Soon, the stinging appeared along with the welts...it had got me, a pair of stings done so lightly it was as if a fairy had touched me with a wand (only this wand hurt). 

    With few exceptions, wasps all live for a year with the queen often being the exception (she will retire into the ground for winter) and it is quite a difficult year even without humans spraying them with every version of chemicals that sound as awful as they are (2,4-hexadienyl butyrate giving way to heptyl butyrate giving way to the current octyl butyrate, those being just the "attractants" used in those hanging bait traps...the actual poisons sound even more chemically onerous).  Everything from spiders to other wasps will seek them out as food, not to mention dragonflies, birds, raccoons and even badgers who dig up those hibernating queens and their eggs and chow them down as a delicacy.   In New Zealand, a bounty was once given for finding and destroying just the queens (118,000 were turned in in just three months); but by the next year, the population appeared to be unaffected.  On the other side, some farmers and ranchers are quite happy to have yellowjackets around (I should have mentioned earlier that the groups --wasps, hornets & yellowjackets--are all basically the same), for they chow down pesky caterpillars and house and barn flies (some of which also bite humans, but mainly cows and horses) but they can also happily devour "...moths, grasshoppers, cockroaches, cicadas, beetle grubs, bees, spiders, and even other yellowjackets of the same species," says author Justin O. Schmidt who wrote The Sting of the Wild from which most of this information is gleaned.  He tells of the "accordian" like body function (that pulsating abdomen you see when a bee or wasp is feeding) that brings them air, their odor-marking of discovered food done in ever-widening concentric circles to guide them back to the site, the spraying of sweet-smelling (says the author) pheromones to notify other social wasps of an attack and of needing immediate help.  And of course, their strong mandibles that can simply crush many smaller insects (if a wasp lands on you and you are patient, it will explore your skin as much as a house fly would; let it land on your palm or have a meat smell smeared on your skin and you'll be able to feel its pinchers attempting to tear off a bit of this "meal;" often, when we eat outside and wasps begin to appear, my wife and I will simply place a small plate of tiny, tiny pieces of meat off to the side and watch them cut and carry away the pieces without disturbing us).

    But mainly Professor Schmidt's book is about what it is like to be stung, and he dives into the task with painful relish (limiting himself to bees, wasps and ants, however).  Here is his description of a common paper wasp: Burning, throbbing, and lonely.  A single drop of superheated frying oil has landed on your arm.  On his scale of 1 to 4, a paper wasp rates a measly 1.5.  So who would do this, subject himself to letting the world know just how bad a sting feels (and how long it will last)?   But you're curious, aren't you?  So here are a few of his other painful bites: Pure, intense, brilliant pain.  Like walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch nail embedded in your heel (Bullet ant: 4); A skewering message; get lost.  Surprising, because you did not touch a cactus spine, until you realize it's from a bee. (Cactus bee: 1); Sharp, piercing, and immediate.  You know what cattle feel when they are branded (Golden paper wasp: 2.5); Explosive and long lasting, you sound insane as you scream.  Hot oil from the deep fryer spilling over your entire hand (Velvet ant: 3); After eight unrelenting hours of drilling into that ingrown toenail, you find the drill is wedged in the toe (Maricopa harvester ant: 3). 

    Nature, painful as she might be at times, has much for us to experience.  Professor Schmidt has given us some pause as well as education with his own body serving as the testing laboratory.  But as with dandelions (which I described as anything but weeds in an earlier post), each biting and stinging insect is here for a reason and does what it does mainly for defensive survival (he debunks many of the myths of insects killing their prey with their venom).  As I've discovered with wasps (and make no mistake, I am not actively seeking them out as friends and definitely do heed their warnings), overcoming some of our preconceptions and fears may just lead to discovering a newfound beauty, bright yellows and pulsating stripes, bodies covered with layers of pollen, ants moving as freely as us at a crowded airport.  The sting part just might be optional...