Wasp or Yellow Jacket?

A Yellow Jacket is a wasp but not all wasps are Yellow Jackets.

There was an insect buzzing my ear today and I waved my hand to scare it away. I hit and caught it so it stung my ring finger at the knuckle fold nearest my hand.

I called it a little fucker as i flicked it to the ground. I had a bit of it heiney stuck in my hand so I thought it might be a bee.

Nope.

Yellow Jackets have a barbed stinger that may be pulled out of the little asshole's body.

It burned a lot and swelled a bit. The knuckle still hurts nine hours later.

Nasty little monster.

Was just having this conversation with buddies yesterday about how it seems like whether an insect is referred to as a wasp or a yellow jacket depends on where the person doing the naming is from. I'm curious where hornets come in as well.

Here we go: https://www.howtogettingridofbees.co...kets-vs-wasps/

Sounds like it was a yellow jacket that got you.

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Yellow jackets versus hornets is a fascinating comparison. Yellow jackets cause more nuisance than hornets because they find sweets simply irresistible. Meaning that you need to watch out for your glass of fruit juice. This is very important as they have probably visited the garbage dump looking for food before coming to you. Hornets feed on other live insects, meaning they can be actually beneficial.Bites are hard to deal with everywhere. Yellowjackets sting more frequently than hornets, but those are much less painful, and they usually die after stinging as their stingers get caught in the skin. Hornets can repeatedly sting humans as their stings are not barbed, unlike yellow jackets. This leads to human deaths now and then.

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It does bother me when people refer to wasps as bees. I've never studied either species in my life, but have known the difference since I was in elementary school. I don't understand how it's that difficult to tell a wasp from a bee. Then again, it seems like 90% of any spiders I see, someone is telling me that it's a brown recluse.

Good thing you weren't out taking a piss.

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Originally Posted by BushMasterBoy

Good thing you weren't out taking a piss.

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That would make for a real shitty day!!!

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Originally Posted by Irving

It does bother me when people refer to wasps as bees.

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They do that here all the time. Drives me up the wall.

Yellow jackets are a huge problem here. I get stung at work 3 or 4 times a week on average. They love to build nests under propane tank lids. They're also capable of stinging multiple times. Little bastards will bite you to hang on then zap you with their stingers...sometimes more than once.

A couple of years ago my son was helping me move rocks on my lot wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Well, one of the large rocks was on top of a yellow jacket nest. He was hit over a dozen times when he picked up the rock to move it. Thankfully, he didn't have a severe reaction to it; just some swelling and nausea.

You forgot about hornets.

Seems like the yellow jackets are really active right now, but so are the bees. They know winter is coming.

The puppy has been going after them in the grass. I saw him eat at least one. I guess he'll figure it out.

Yellow Jackets are related to their European cousins, the Hornet.

Yep ...

There are wasps that are predatory toward other unfavorable insects. They're not 'total assholes', but they're also not very common.

I thought most wasps are predatory. I see them taking down moths on occasion. I saw a lot of them eating an elk carcass last week. Could see them pulling off chunks of meat.

Yellow Jackets are considered predatory. They're also attracted to the smell of meat. They're also assholes. I might feel differently about them if they went after mosquitoes. ;-)

https://photos.smugmug.com/Other/Mis...page-001-L.jpg

24 hours later, no swelling but it got in the knuckle somehow and feels like I bopped it with a hammer. I am amazed how potent the venom is.

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Originally Posted by Irving

I thought most wasps are predatory. I see them taking down moths on occasion. I saw a lot of them eating an elk carcass last week. Could see them pulling off chunks of meat.

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Were they from Connecticut ?

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Originally Posted by Great-Kazoo

Were they from Connecticut ?

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Fairfield to be exact...[LOL]

Ha, one of the little bastards got me on the ring finger the other morning while I was quartering an elk. They found us pretty quick and we fought each other for the meat over the course of a couple hours. I've never killed an elk this early in the season and never had to deal with them before. I killed about a dozen and only got the one sting, and I got a lot more meat than they did, so I call lit a win.

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Originally Posted by Irving

It does bother me when people refer to wasps as bees.

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What bothers me more is when people refer to being stung as being bitten. "OMG I just gots bit by a bee!"


Yellow Jackets are Wasps in the same way that Golden Retrievers are Dogs (same goes for "mud daubers" or hornets, etc)

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Originally Posted by Zundfolge

What bothers me more is when people refer to being stung as being bitten. "OMG I just gots bit by a bee!"


Yellow Jackets are Wasps in the same way that Golden Retrievers are Dogs (same goes for "mud daubers" or hornets, etc)

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Once, before my daughter knew better, she was walking by the park as some older girl got bit by a wasp. The older girl was yelling about getting stung and my kid goes, "Actually, wasps bite." They told her to go eat a dick. She got home and told me and I explained that she just learned an important lesson about minding her own business and sounding like a know it all. I think she was six at the time.

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Originally Posted by Irving

Once, before my daughter knew better, she was walking by the park as some older girl got bit by a wasp. The older girl was yelling about getting stung and my kid goes, "Actually, wasps bite."

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She is correct. Yellow jackets often bite to hold themselves in place so they can sting multiple times.

I got stung last month in the hand closing one of my gates. Saw the little fuckers friend fly into the gate shortly after. Then I went on a killing spree all over the property. 4 cans of wasp and hornet killer later, easily over a hundred dead and I haven’t seen one around my property since

Yellow jackets are the worst, not all wasps are huge a-holes.

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Was just walking back into my building after lunch, and as I was reaching up to scratch the edge of my nose a wasp flew between my hand and my face. The little bastard was trapped momentarily and I received a light sting just below my nose. Hope it doesn't swell up.

Happy Freaking Friday.

He was just trying to give you a little smooch and you got in the way. [Coffee]

I hope you don't have a reaction.

yellow jackets are flying aholes with stingers.

I always have benedryl around and sting pads.

I also have industrial strength hornet/wasp killer, pretty sure it would test positive for a chemical agent, one drop touches the yellow jacket its dead.

I hung a trap today. Put a little sugar water in it and got three in 30 minutes. VENGEANCE IS MINE!!!

Just saw another fly by the window. This is much more entertaining than television.

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Originally Posted by Bailey Guns

I get stung at work 3 or 4 times a week on average. They love to build nests under propane tank lids.

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Rarely do I see a problem and the solution just a sentence apart [Muaha]

There was some kind of new predatory wasp I saw for the first time a few years ago. I spray the yellow jackets all the time and thought I saw a YJ go under a sandstone rock. So I waited until night, flipped it and sprayed it - and this was with a now discontinued spray at true value that was the strongest I've ever knew of, instant-killed yellow jackets (less than 1 second to full stop).

These things immediately started buzzing and flying everywhere aggressively, at night. Panic at the disco, baby, scared the hell out of me. They were yellow jacket shaped, but kind of a sickly yellow/pale yellow striping. I had previously seen them intercepting flying ants mid-air and wondered what they were. The spray ofc killed them, but their ability to fight it was impressive.

The ones I give lots, and lots, and lots of respect to are those shiny-blue cricket killers. Never been stung by one, have heard the only thing worse is a bullet ant. Luckily, they are not assholes. I just don't want it to ever think I slighted it with something like an "ok" sign, so I give it lots and lots of space.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...7220decab5.jpg

Did it look like this?


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In the head, yes, but the abdomen lacked black - more of a yellow + sickly brown/green stripes. It might even be a localized species for all I know.

Totally off topic: There used to be what I called sand snails around here -- they seemed to go extinct maybe 15-20 years back, never have found them in any books. They made a shell out of sand, and congregated around windows, eves, decks, etc, and could spin silk - they'd go up and down on it from anchor points. About 3-6mm at their biggest. I never opened one up to see what it looked like. Still some of their sand-shell carcasses around, but haven't seen a living one in a couple decades. Anyone seen anything like that? I've always been curious what they were.

We have both yellow jackets and paper wasps and they look extremely similar. Both are susceptible to a can of WD-40 and a match though, their wings don't seem to withstand the flame very well. Oddly. Fun watching them walk around trying to fly with no wings though.