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Never seen a male wasp drunk. Females, sure; I have a fig tree tall enough that some of the fruits are hard to reach, so they stay on the branches while they fe

Never seen a male wasp drunk. Females, sure; I have a fig tree tall enough that some of the fruits are hard to reach, so they stay on the branches while they ferment, and that tree became very popular with the foragers from a nearby bald-faced yellowjacket nest late last summer - at that point the work of the year and the lives of the wasps are likewise nearly done, so it seems only fair they should enjoy themselves a bit in retirement. One of them had a bit too much last year and ended up sleeping it off on my porch window! It was interesting to watch her sleep - you wouldn't think it off the top of your head, but you can tell what stage of sleep they're in by their breathing, just as with sleeping humans. https://aaron-m.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/img_8240.jpg https://aaron-m.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/img_8240.jpg

the_af 5y ago
Your post is funny, thanks for sharing. It makes me feel bad for killing a bunch of wasps one day, when I was having some coffee with cake at a coffeehouse with an open window, and a bunch of yellowjackets got attracted to the sugary things I was having. Two things of note: I didn't know back then the yellowjacket's sting is one of the most painful, but also, it's very easy to kill wasps without getting stung, especially if they are interested in something else: just don't attack many of them at the same time, strike them with your hand against something hard, and make sure every kill counts so you don't get an angry wasp afterwards. I wasn't stung. I feel bad about it though. They just wanted some cake, and who would blame them? I guess I was in a bad mood. I wish I had found a nonviolent way of dealing with those yellowjackets :/
- throwanem 5y ago
  That took a lot of saying, and I respect it. Incidentally, you're probably a lot luckier than you know that you didn't get stung: yellowjackets' venom includes an alarm pheromone. If one of them had stung you, with so many of her sisters right there...
tomcam 5y ago
“bald-faced Yellowjacket” is my new favorite insult
- throwanem 5y ago
  Is it really an insult, though? Just look at this big burly lady. Look at her handsome face! https://aaron-m.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/img_8017.jpg https://aaron-m.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/img_8017.jpg I took this shot with my big birding lens, six feet or so from this nest that was under the eave of my side porch. It would have been both rude and dangerous to approach with my macro rig - she's guarding the nest and checking me out, too! Any nest will be actively patrolled against intruders large and small, but the intensity of concern scales roughly with the size of brood and colony, and this was a young nest with probably only one comb - I didn't know it was there until after I'd been much closer to it than this, but they weren't bothered at all, despite that I earned their attention again when I started taking an interest. Not long after this shot, the local raccoons found the same nest and left nothing of it but a few scraps of carton, but it was early enough in the season that they could have escaped and rebuilt elsewhere without losing too much brood - it's not all that easy for a human to tell, but from their looks I'm pretty sure this was the same family that came back later in the year for the figs. I hope so! There were lots of foragers in that tree, so if they were from the same colony then they not only survived but thrived.
  - tomcam 5y ago
    She’s a fine-looking Yellowjacket, not gonna lie

the_af 5y ago

Your post is funny, thanks for sharing. It makes me feel bad for killing a bunch of wasps one day, when I was having some coffee with cake at a coffeehouse with an open window, and a bunch of yellowjackets got attracted to the sugary things I was having. Two things of note: I didn't know back then the yellowjacket's sting is one of the most painful, but also, it's very easy to kill wasps without getting stung, especially if they are interested in something else: just don't attack many of them at the same time, strike them with your hand against something hard, and make sure every kill counts so you don't get an angry wasp afterwards. I wasn't stung. I feel bad about it though. They just wanted some cake, and who would blame them? I guess I was in a bad mood. I wish I had found a nonviolent way of dealing with those yellowjackets :/

throwanem 5y ago
That took a lot of saying, and I respect it. Incidentally, you're probably a lot luckier than you know that you didn't get stung: yellowjackets' venom includes an alarm pheromone. If one of them had stung you, with so many of her sisters right there...

tomcam 5y ago

“bald-faced Yellowjacket” is my new favorite insult

throwanem 5y ago
Is it really an insult, though? Just look at this big burly lady. Look at her handsome face! https://aaron-m.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/img_8017.jpg https://aaron-m.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/img_8017.jpg I took this shot with my big birding lens, six feet or so from this nest that was under the eave of my side porch. It would have been both rude and dangerous to approach with my macro rig - she's guarding the nest and checking me out, too! Any nest will be actively patrolled against intruders large and small, but the intensity of concern scales roughly with the size of brood and colony, and this was a young nest with probably only one comb - I didn't know it was there until after I'd been much closer to it than this, but they weren't bothered at all, despite that I earned their attention again when I started taking an interest. Not long after this shot, the local raccoons found the same nest and left nothing of it but a few scraps of carton, but it was early enough in the season that they could have escaped and rebuilt elsewhere without losing too much brood - it's not all that easy for a human to tell, but from their looks I'm pretty sure this was the same family that came back later in the year for the figs. I hope so! There were lots of foragers in that tree, so if they were from the same colony then they not only survived but thrived.
- tomcam 5y ago
  She’s a fine-looking Yellowjacket, not gonna lie