Dealing with a wasps nest - not really bee related

[Karol]

They were wasps that stung me

Sorry my bad. When you referred to them as little darlings I mistakenly thought you were referring to your bees. First time I've ever come across wasps being called darlings.

First off the chance of reacting is small and diminishes with time (the caveat being the absence of other compounding factors such as stents). If you haven't suffered palpitations/fluttering of your heart, or numbness or tingling or pain in your left arm, or tightness of your chest or shortness of breath or crowning headache within a few hours of the stings then your chance of reacting has dropped off considerably. You should still be mindfull over the next 7 to 10 days or so if you develop chest pain to get medical attention and mention wasp stings and Kounis. That way you can get checked out and receive appropriate treatment. To put your mind at rest, early and correct medical intervention with Kounis gets good results so I shouldn't worry unduly. And chlorpheniramine is a useful first aid measure to keep in your kit bag.

 

[North End Bees]

First off the chance of reacting is small and diminishes with time

So not the figures you quoted earlier then?

 

[Karol]

So not the figures you quoted earlier then?

The figure I quoted at the outset was 1 in 125 for complications from a wasp sting. So a small but not rare risk. 124 out of 125 of those stung will be fine.

This isn't about trying to scare people. It's about giving people information in good faith so they can make better informed choices and the word here is choices.

 

[drex]

A " complication" much more common then Kounis would be simple infection at the site of the sting. There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

 

[F.F.Stung]

It's not the ones you catch you have to worry about ... it's the ones that escape and go back to tell their mates where the source of food is that you need to be concerned about. You really need a high efficiency trap that prevents the wasps from leaving once they are in there and the waspbane (I've found) is the best of the lot ... not cheap .. but it works. I had a problem with wasps attacking two nucs in my apiary a few years ago and following the waspbane instructions with the waspbane trap solved the problem in no time. I'm sure cheaper or even home made traps are available ... but ... I know what worked for me.

Same thing with the fly problem when you keep hens - I've used the Red Top fly trap with complete success ... decided to be a cheapskate once year and bought the look-alike. Only did it once ! Nowhere near as effective ...

My hens love chasing the flies, and eating them.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

A " complication" much more common then Kounis would be simple infection at the site of the sting. There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Putting things into a semblance of perspective, I'm 74 (going on 15 or so I'm told) and to the best of my recollection I've been stung by wasps only on a couple of occasions. First time as a child before I learned what wasps were, second time about 50 years ago. I received a couple of stings on my wrist when I walked through the orchard and inadvertently trod in a nest occupying a mousehole but didn't realize what the soft footfall meant until the hot needles went in. Having been awakened to the situation I left the location pdq while the wasps looked for something to vent their spleen onto.
That nest got terminated next day! We had a rabbit killing product called Cymag which could be administered by introduction into an entrance using a dry spoon on the end of a long stick. Contact with damp earth or any other moisture caused a reaction to release cyanide gas. Once introduced a grass sod was placed over the hole so the gas went into the cavity.
Needless to say it's no longer available.

 

[Amari]

Apparently wasps don't have the right to live their lives?

Lives? Assuming you're not a vegetarian, what about pigs, sheep, cattle, chickens, fish? Then there are shrimps, crabs, lobsters, oysters, escargot, et al. You don't try and eradicate Varroa? Microorganisms have lives too - no antibiotics? You don't pour bleach to 'clean round the bend'? Then there are plants and fungi. All have lives.

 

[North End Bees]

Lives? Assuming you're not a vegetarian, what about pigs, sheep, cattle, chickens, fish? Then there are shrimps, crabs, lobsters, oysters, escargot, et al. You don't try and eradicate Varroa? Microorganisms have lives too - no antibiotics? You don't pour bleach to 'clean round the bend'? Then there are plants and fungi. All have lives.

Hmm, assuming I'm not vegetarian. Which I am and have been since childhood so that's the first dozen things on your list.

Antibiotics I've genuinely never taken in my adult life. I can't say about childhood but that also seems unlikely as life for children back then was a lot healthier than the indoor lives kids often live these days.

Ok, yes I do however, distinguish between 'harmful' and 'beneficial' microorganisms.

But re beneficial and harmful, the majority of people however genuinely don't realise that wasps are a beneficial insect. There are never likely to be any mass media campaigns to Save the Wasp. But they seem to be surviving regardless of human intervention, same as the bees, which the media would have people believe are almost on the point of extinction.

We don't need to kill wasps around the apiary, just make sure our bees have the means to naturally defend themselves, e.g no leaky boxes or artificially weakened colonies from late splits.

And around BBQs and picnics, it's generally the people who flap at wasps to get rid of them who end up being stung. How's the wasp supposed to know you're just defending your ice-cream?

Live and let live.

 

[Karol]

Hmm, assuming I'm not vegetarian. Which I am <snip>

So how many carrots have you killed?

You might be surprised how many people get stung inside the mouth or down the throat from drinking wasps that have got into cans/bottles without being seen.

Live and let live is right. But there are times when choices need to be made. I have never advocated the destruction of nests unless they are a direct threat to human life. When it comes to nuisance wasps in outdoor dining situations then the deployment of integrated wasp management when done properly vastly reduces the number of wasps through management and only resorts to killing a fraction of residual wasps and this only after the nest is in decline and never targetting the sexual progeny, only the moribund workers.

 

[North End Bees]

So how many carrots have you killed?

You might be surprised how many people get stung inside the mouth or down the throat from drinking wasps that have got into cans/bottles without being seen.

Live and let live is right. But there are times when choices need to be made. I have never advocated the destruction of nests unless they are a direct threat to human life. When it comes to nuisance wasps in outdoor dining situations then the deployment of integrated wasp management when done properly vastly reduces the number of wasps through management and only resorts to killing a fraction of residual wasps and this only after the nest is in decline and never targetting the sexual progeny, only the moribund workers.

I've been stung by wasps just three times in my life, that's on average once every twenty years. The last time was when I bit into a sandwich and the wasp on it stung the roof of my mouth. The pain was intense but short-lived and my mouth felt numb the rest of the afternoon, the same feeling you get after a trip to the dentist for a filling. The wasp didn't fare so well - I'd accidently bitten it in half!

I do realise that if it had stung my tongue or throat, the outcome could have been a lot worse. But my learning point from that experience wasn't to eradicate all wasps from picnics - just notice what I'm putting in my mouth. Applies not just to wasps but also anything else that may appear on the food!

Nowadays if we have an annoying wasp when eating outdoors I just trap it under a glass and move it away. It gets released when we've finished.

PS, no carrots killed. I don't like carrots!

 

[Karol]

<snip>

I do realise that if it had stung my tongue or throat, the outcome could have been a lot worse. But my learning point from that experience wasn't to eradicate all wasps from picnics - just notice what I'm putting in my mouth.

<snip>

So at visitor attractions we teach clients to sell all drinks with (narrow) straws. Still have to be careful because one site used fun straws and a patron was still stung on the tongue and rushed to hospital because the bore of the straw was wide enough for the wasp to be sucked up!

Nowadays if we have an annoying wasp when eating outdoors I just trap it under a glass and move it away. It gets released when we've finished.

At home no problem. In public spaces it's a little bit different.

PS, no carrots killed. I don't like carrots!

Future generations of legumes wiped out!

 

[North End Bees]

So at visitor attractions we teach clients to sell all drinks with (narrow) straws. Still have to be careful because one site used fun straws and a patron was still stung on the tongue and rushed to hospital because the bore of the straw was wide enough for the wasp to be sucked up!

At home no problem. In public spaces it's a little bit different.

I think the takeaway is we need to become more responsible for our own actions regarding the world around us and bring up our children accordingly.

We could legislate that public venues should only sell drinks with narrow straws but what happens when people are so used to be nannyed they don't bother taking minimal responsibility for what goes in their mouth?

As it is, we have a society which abdicates personal responsibility in favour of suing someone else for not removing all the risks.

If every individual eradicated the things they don't like/are scared of, citing human rights, there would very quickly be nothing left on the planet. Just billions of humans...oh, looks like we're already going that way!

 

[ericbeaumont]

majority of people however genuinely don't realise that wasps are a beneficial insect

Heard that so often that I can bank on it: I hate wasps. They're no use for anything! We have an opportunity to counter that by painting the wider picture of pollination and the value of wasps to farmers and gardeners during spring and summer. Takes about a minute.

stung inside the mouth or down the throat from drinking wasps that have got into cans/bottles without being seen.

Word should be spread: never drink from a can in August. If children were taught to be aware of nature and work with and around it, they're likely to become more resilient as adults and to respect and defend nature.

 

[Amari]

It's difficult to get the right balance. I find wasps invade my personal space much more than bees eg. they buzz around my lips.
Some years ago we had a street party (three dwellings in a cul-de-sac) to celebrate the 60th birthdays of three residents. Guests had come from far away. We had a wasp invasion and it was scarcely possible to consume the food and drink comfortably. It spoilt the day.

 

[Karol]

I think the takeaway is we need to become more responsible for our own actions regarding the world around us and bring up our children accordingly.

We could legislate that public venues should only sell drinks with narrow straws but what happens when people are so used to be nannyed they don't bother taking minimal responsibility for what goes in their mouth?

I absolutely concur. I do think though that there is still a duty of care. So if venues sell sweet foods knowing that they will cause elevated nuisance wasp problems then I believe they have a responsibility to reduce that risk. That does not mean eradicating wasps injudiciously. There are lots of things that can be done to reduce draw mostly by preventing swarm feeding in the first place.

As it is, we have a society which abdicates personal responsibility in favour of suing someone else for not removing all the risks.

Or fails to teach personal jeopardy so we get snowflakes.

That said on one occasion I did witness 29 people get stung in an outdoor amphitheatre within the space of a 1/2 hour show because the wasp problem was so bad. In the vast majority of those sting cases people were'nt even aware of the wasp in their vicinity because they were concentrating on watching the show. Taught me a lot that research did.

If every individual eradicated the things they don't like/are scared of, citing human rights, there would very quickly be nothing left on the planet. Just billions of humans...oh, looks like we're already going that way!

Right there with you on that one. I've spent the past two decades persuading pest controllers to move away from treating nests outdoors and away from pesticides first line for treating wasps in favour of integrated wasp management and to give you some sense of that commitment, pre-pandemic I was running whole day seminars (9 till 6 (usually till 8)) twice a month for free from October to June each year.

 

[Karol]

Heard that so often that I can bank on it: I hate wasps. They're no use for anything! We have an opportunity to counter that by painting the wider picture of pollination and the value of wasps to farmers and gardeners during spring and summer. Takes about a minute.
Word should be spread: never drink from a can in August. If children were taught to be aware of nature and work with and around it, they're likely to become more resilient as adults and to respect and defend nature.

Those who know me long enough on the forum will attest to the endeavours I have gone to to educate people about the benefits that wasps bring. I have had articles published in BBC magazines, Grow your Own, etc, etc extolling the virtues of wasps and how they need valued so as to be managed and not wilfully destroyed. I've even toured the country giving talks to local associations about how important wasps are ecologically. Yes some wasps will meet their end as part of integrated wasp management in the same way that beekeepers cull unruly or diseased hives. But that can and should always be judicious and minimized.