North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us>]

Hmm, here in eastern Mass, we have

Paper wasps:  Brown critters that nest in paper nests hanging behind shutters, in windows, and other inconvenient places.  Unless the nest is in a very inconvenient place, the critters are fairly harmless.  I've never been stung without stepping on one or something.

White Faced Hornets:  Big scary wasps that next much like paper wasps.  Not too common, so I don't have a strong sense of how dangerous they are.

Honey Bees:  Smaller and chubbier than paper wasps, with fur.  Nest in holes in trees and such in big hives.  Pretty harmless and getting rare.

Bumble Bees:  Pretty much everything else with fur, usually more rotund than honey bees, and live in small nests in the ground.  You pretty much have to grab one for it to sting you.

Yellow Jackets:  These looks like shiny furless honeybees, with a slightly more slender waist.  They live in large underground nests and are very aggressive about defending their nests.  They consider "walking near the nest" as an aggressive act, and can be pretty dangerous.

Ginda

On Jul 20, 2008, at 1:03 PM, Hal Love wrote:

Having lived in areas where the different types of "yellow jackets" can be found, it is clear folks are talking about completely different species. I grew up in Arkansas and there a yellow jacket was a big, hornet-like, aggressive paper wasp that we feared very much. The nest were found just about anywhere that one may find the brown paper wasp nests. The underside of the eves of houses was probably the most common location.

Here in middle TN, we only seem to have the brown paper wasps, and the only yellow jackets are the ground wasps that are much smaller and very different looking than the paper wasps. They look more like bees and the entrances to the tunnels are about 0.5 inches in diameter. If you get too close to the entrance and distrub them, they will swarm out and aggressively chase and sting. I was once chased 300 feet before they stopped, but usually they will defend up to about 100 feet. They don't seem to initiate an attack unless you get really close to the entrance and create some sort of disturbance (a lawn mower works really well). These things swarm all over rotting pears that the squirrels constantly drop to the ground, so I would think pear or apple juice would make a great bait for a trap.

Hal