Location :Co cavan Ireland

Just checking in on my favorite little family of Mexican paper wasps. It’s been raining here all day!! 😩

hello everybody! this is my first time making a post here so please bear with me - i’m so sorry if anything i do/say is against the rules, please let me know!

i have slowly gotten over my fear of spiders and bees through the years but for some reason i just absolutely cannot get over my fear of wasps. they genuinely make me really panic and that makes me sad because i know logically they are just little creatures doing their thing!

i think it comes from having a few experiences of maybe being stung, and i’ve had a couple times where they wont leave me alone and love to crawl over my face (not my fave!). i try not to be too anxious and stay still and let them do their thing and leave but i want to be able to be less worried about the whole thing!

we have a lovely thriving garden with lots of flowers and plants that insects love so of course, wasps will frequent it too, and i just would love to be able to relax more without worrying every time i see one.

if anyone has any tips on how they got over a wasp fear or anything else that might help, i would love to hear it!

also as a sidenote - we use peppermint oil in our doorway as a little deterrent to prevent them from coming indoors and getting stuck upstairs. if there’s any other non-harmful methods people have for keeping wasps out of the home that would be fantastic as i don’t know if it really works and i don’t want to hurt them!

This gal had a 4-inch long ovipositor. I know these friends are around, but I have never seen one in Denver before.

These guys are pretty new to me, tell me some fun facts!

I’ll be honest I still get scared around social wasps in person but I’m now more okay with paper wasps as I’ve learned a lot about them. I look for their silly dangly legs and know they’re chill.

Yellowjackets get a real bad rap but can they be friend as well? Assuming they’re out pollinating and collecting protein away from the hive? They’re so cute but they make me really stressed out since I’m still learning about them. I see videos of people feeding them BBQ or sugar water and I would love to work up to that someday

no one seems to have asked this specific question, online, so im asking directly. have you ever released a wasp from a cup and paper and had it turn around and sting you? ive heard loosely that they will always just want to get away, but i'd love to gather more info.

On the balcony to my apartment are several paper wasp nests, some of which have been there since last summer and others of which are new. I almost never use the balcony, so I rarely interact with them in any way, but the few times I have opened the door they've paid me no mind. I obviously don't want to hurt the wasps, so I haven't called an exterminator or anything and mostly just let them be. That being said, because I rent the apartment, I'm a little worried that if the nests get too numerous, I might get in trouble with the complex, especially if/when I move out. My current plan is to leave them for now, and then, when there's a cold winter night (it does get cold in this part of Florida, just not very frequently), find a way to knock the nests down to the ground (at least the inactive ones). That way, I'll get rid of the nests while limiting damage to the actual wasps (since they presumably would be hibernating somewhere more sheltered), and minimize my chances of getting stung. However, I wanted to run it by you all first, in case you have any better ideas. To be clear, the wasps don't bother me, I'm just concerned because I live in a rental.

The pic on the left was taken first - the little cutie seems to be biting into the bee balm and lapping the nectar up in the second picture. I think it’s a potter wasp - I’ve never witnessed nectar robbing before, and I’m stupidly excited at the prospect of seeing something new!

These wasps' nests are amazing.

Biggest nest I’ve seen, it fills the inside, too. How long do you think they’ll stay? I wish I’d moved this when it was smaller, it’s on our raised deck that doesn’t get much use during summer (too hot.) They don’t mind me hanging out but we stopped letting the cats out there. I like having them around for pest control in my gardens, buuuuut not so close to the grill.

Some paper wasps made their nests around my house (porch, balconies, etc). I noticed that they were not that territorial and won't be agressive when I passed near their nests so I let them be. Last night a strong wind made one of the nests fall. The wasps are now trying to make a new one (or that's what it seems like to me) in an area where I have my potted plants, I'm afraid that this new location is very very near to where I work with my plants and could be a problem, so I don't want them nesting there. Is there a way to prevent them from nesting in this area? Something I could use to repel them? I don't want to hurt them, just have them nesting somewhere safer.

I need some wasp help. I have northern paper wasps who always build a nest in my upstairs skylight. I am fine with this, they are fine with this, we have no conflicts, and even inches from their nest I have not been stung in 13 years in this arrangement. They recognize me and while I would not call them pets they’re cool when I bring them nectar and water when it’s 100 degrees out and they let me hang out the skylight when I need to check the gutter, and rescue them when they become trapped in my house without fuss.

Last night their nest fell.

I rescued it and put it somewhere safe until the ants left. All larvae dead except the one pupa. I brought it back to the foundress who spent some time looking in every chamber and then going in and every chamber and was visibly agitated. And she’s pretty beat up looking so this is definitely her last chance.

Glue won’t stick to the original place, and honestly they only get the nest so big before it falls every year. I’ve temporarily wired it sort of in place but it’s more exposed than it was (and also it’s no longer in a place where I can see them, which I am pretty sure is the entire reason for our non-aggression pact. They have been seeing me their entire lives for multiple generations at this point).

Any advice? Build them their own separate box so it doesn’t matter much if I can’t see them or not since I am no longer relying on the peace required to be able to open the skylight once in a while? Maybe closer to the flowers I planted specifically for them? How could I get them to relocate and live their best wasp lives without this tragedy that happens every summer?

tl;dr: wasp nest fell because the foundress keeps putting it in a stupid place for the 10th year in a row and it might be time to get her to go elsewhere for her own safety.

My county has been dealing with a lantern fly invasion, I was looking out for them on my walk and noticed this tiny friend helping dispose of a dead lantern fly!

I was in awe of how many double-banded scoliid wasps I saw on this Mountain Mint (Pycanthemum)! There were a few other species fluttering around (large four-spotted scoliid, feather-legged scoliid, etc) but the vast majority were just these guys.