"Malcolm" wrote in message
...

In article , Douglas
writes

joedoe Wrote:
On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 20:15:49 +0000, Chris Hogg wrote:

Since then I have been an advocate for 'leave the wasp alone' .

I have always left wasps alone to the extent of letting them land on me
and have a walk about.

The only 2 times I have been stung were both my own fault.
The first time, one landed on me and I hadn't noticed, so it stung me
in self defence when I moved in a way it perceived to be threatening.
The second one was similar, but it had climbed up my t- shirt.

Never have I come across (been stung by I mean) the more aggressive
species which appears later on in the summer and, according to everyone
else, stings for no apparent reason.

You've not come across it because it doesn't exist! All wasps become more
obvious in the late summer because of changes in what they are doing.
During the spring and first part of the summer, the workers are busy
gathering caterpillars, aphids, etc., to feed the young in the nest and
hardly bother with sweet things and are consequently much less obvious as
a result because they aren't coming into houses except accidentally. Only
when the rearing period is over and the colony is beginning to break up do
the wasps start to satisfy their apparent craving for sugars, turning
their attention to fruit on trees, and any sweet foods left uncovered in
houses or being eaten in the garden, at picnics, etc.

There are very few differences in the levels of aggressive behaviour
between the seven species of social wasps in the UK, with hornet the
largest and the Norwegian wasp the smallest. And there are none that
"stings for no apparent reason". They sting to defend themselves if
someone attacks them, exactly as you describe above. Unfortunately, few
people have your sang froid and will react immediately one lands on them,
often with painful results, whereas if they had left it alone (again as
you advise, though it is very difficult, I know), the chances of being
stung are greatly reduced. The same applies to flapping your arms and
hands to drive them away. They aren't attacking you so don't attack them
back - which as advice must be way up there in the pantheon of "easier
said than done" :-)

I appreciate the good work that wasps do and I even used to collect them as
a kid (I collected insects as a hobby)
and you clearly know about them. I do confess to being completely unable to
avoid flapping my arms at them though.
I have really tried but I am a weak man. As a young kid, I was stung by a
poor unfortunate bumble bee
that got trapped in a window just beside my cot (it is my earliest memory).
I poked at it and it stung and I have been
psychologically ruined ever since. I know all about what I should do but I
genuinely get very agitated when wasps come near me and my arms flap
spontaneously. For what it is worth, I have not been stung once since the
bee incident so I guess statistically
the flapping defencse seems to have the edge here among the tiny sample of
posts we have had so far :-)
although I would much prefer to be brave and stay calm, even if I got an
occasional sting.
My daughter is now 11 and she was also stung as a kid (in a beer garden near
Cambridge when she was between
1 and 2. Fortunately, she never made the connection between the wasp and
the sting. She is a very keen animal lover and stays completely calm if any
wasps come near her so I am pleased that she survived with more sensible
reactions.

Continental hornets are a different matter. I have never seen UK hornets so
I do not know how big they are.
I have seen ones in Germany and Italy that were genuinely COLOSSAL. I AM
NOT EXAGERRATING
(well maybe a little) and I am not referrring to wood wasps. These were
gigantic vespa type characters that blotted out the sun when they flew past.




--
Malcolm