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world's worst photo but today I was out writing and I felt something tickling around my feet. I closed my laptop to see what it was, and found this little guy looking for a place to land. He did, a few times, and wandered around my foot, and eventually left along his way.
I try to be kind to these guys throughout the year. They spend the summer hunting bugs in my yard to feed the babies - and I think they're one of the major culprits for why my yard isn't overrun by mosquitoes - but in the fall, the queens shut down the hives and kick all the others out. This leaves them lost and hungry. After all they've done for me in terms of pest control, I like to leave out some form of sugar for them to make their dying days a bit better and easier.
In turn, they don't sting me. In the 11 years I've been here, through the several hives every summer on my property, I've only been stung one time- the time I stepped directly on their hive inside of my bird pen, which I hadn't realized was even there because I'd been in and out of that pen all summer and never been bothered by them. The rest of the time they visit, they'll land on me, they'll share my drinks in peace. When I go outside and sit, they come hunt around me.
I know they get a bad rap, but here, at least, they're just little dudes.
[PHOTOS TAKEN: MARCH 3RD, 2024 | Image IDs: Six photos of a large, orange-ish yellow and black queen yellowjacket feeding from and pollinating the white, green, and yellow flowers of several plum trees /End IDs.]
Part 4 of this set! It's always great to see the beautiful yellowjacket queens flying around in the early year, they're so much bigger than the others
@fnrrfygmschnish submitted: Found this long, skinny mystery wasp in a motel room in Lexington, VA. Don't think I've ever seen one quite like it before, so I wonder if it's a non-native species and hitched a ride with whoever stayed in the room before me?
You would not believe how many wasp species there are, and most people haven't seen 99% of them. When in doubt, it's almost always just a native species you've never seen. This one is a native yellow-legged mud dauber :)