Does anyone know anything about wasps?

can you get me a pic that looks similar to it? I know a bit about wasps cuz we used to get them a lot at my old house(we had trees that gave us LOTS of peaches

edit: Holy crap! O.O....I always get stung when I let those darned this near me. Just be careful, ok? You don't wanna find out the hard way that you're allergic to them.

yeah they love those. stay away as much as you can

ouch. sorry...

mccardey said:

I have a wasp-y thing that keeps turning up in my office, even though I keep taking it outside.

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Don't mean to alarm you but are you sure it's the same wasp? You may have a nest of them in your office. Do wasps have nests? I don't know. This isn't helpful is it?

Okie dokie ^^ and don't worry too much, there are sprays and the like to get bees and wasps nests gone, withers them AND poisons the wasps

Well, I can tell you summat about wasps, but it looks as though you've got it sorted.

Carry on.

In England whenever someone sees a wasp like thing they flap their arms wildly and run off flapping even more wildly screaming.

I always glare at them and tell them if *I* get stung because they agitated them *I* will sting *them*.

I then sit or stand there perfectly still and usually Mr. or Mrs. Wasp just sit down on me, decide I'm not edible and fly off again.

And everyone else goes: oh no, you're so brave, I could never do that!

When you don't threaten Mr. or Mrs. Wasp they're usually pleasant. BUT make sure there's no nest. Because they can get unpleasant en masse.

I love that, because virtually everything in Australia is actively trying to kill you, a European wasp appears not to have a stinger...

mccardey said:

But it seemed like a nice wasp.

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It is not a nice wasp. It is a bad wasp. It will sting you for fun and release chemicals to encourage all the other wasps to sting you too.

Does your office have a window? You might want to take a look around the outside of the house near your office in case there's a nest. Look for a stream of wasps going in and out of a hole - in brickwork, under the eaves, around the window, etc.

I personally don't, but I know of an expert. http://imgur.com/vTsFTVn

Parametric said:

It is not a nice wasp. It is a bad wasp. It will sting you for fun and release chemicals to encourage all the other wasps to sting you too.

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They only sting when threatened. They are not having fun wile doing so

but yes, a human being in the wrong place at the wrong time making the wrong gesture can seem like a threat. But still, they felt threatened. Best thing is to keep still and calm they will move on.

Forbidden Snowflake said:

They only sting when threatened. They are not having fun wile doing so

but yes, a human being in the wrong place at the wrong time making the wrong gesture can seem like a threat. But still, they felt threatened. Best thing is to keep still and calm they will move on.

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You're part of the wasp conspiracy, aren't you.

European wasps generally only sting when held or when you get too close to their nest. They sting more readily than bees because they survive to sting another day, but they're not overly agressive in my experience. Although I have never tried to test the limits of their temper...

Many wasps have moveable stingers and with European wasps those only come out when they do want to sting. My dad once showed me by gently picking up a wasp with a pincet so I could see the tiny sting come out of the abdomen.

The two times I've been stung by a wasp was near a pool, happening exactly the same way. The wasp was licking water off the inside of my knee and I didn't know it was there when I knelt down. They probably wouldn't have stung me if they hadn't felt trapped.

I've swatted wasps away with the back of my hand if they're too in-my-face, like when eating fruit or ice cream. None of those ever came back to attack me.

I generally transfer any that's strayed inside in a little jar. (I keep specific little jars for transportation of intruding insects. I may be weird like that.)

Parametric said:

You're part of the wasp conspiracy, aren't you.

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No I'm just really terrified of spiders and a few had to die because of me (putting them outside, vacuum cleaner, my dog eating them) and I feel terribly guilty, so I try to make it up by defending another unloved animal that I'm not afraid of and that so far has never stung me

It's a (desperate?) attempt to improve karma.

Forbidden Snowflake said:

I'm just really terrified of spiders and a few had to die because of me (putting them outside, vacuum cleaner, my dog eating them) and I feel terribly guilty, so I try to make it up by defending another unloved animal that I'm not afraid of and that so far has never stung me

It's a (desperate?) attempt to improve karma.

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I - and the sole (soul?) of my shoe - are going straight to hell...

goddammit, why can't I get the grammar of that sentence to sound right? "me [and the shoe] are" doesn't work either, but surely it can't be "I [and the shoe] am"? grr.

I suspect this is superfluous, but there are heaps of insects which look like wasps but are not wasps (and don't have stings). It's a good defense mechanism, because everything goes - oh, wasp, those sting, don't eat that.

I know nothing about invertebrates in Australia though, but I'm certain the rule of thumb over there is that everything is deadly, and should be treated accordingly.

Wasps?!?! Kill it! Kill it with fire!

Actually, CO2 is better, in my experience, and less damaging to the house.

We had a nest of yellow jackets that moved in under our front steps. We (I say we, I mean my husband. I didn't go near the damn things) tried several kinds of poison, traps, and even covering over the hole with concrete and they just dug a new entrance.

Then, one day, I was walking the dog and looking at a snow bank (early September, first snow of the year) and I started wondering if I could pack snow into their hole and freeze them out. By the time I got home, the snow idea had become packing the entrance with dry ice.

It worked. No more wasps.

To say I don't like wasps, bees and hornets would be like saying the surface of the sun is kind of warm.