Yellow Jackets - Vespula vulgaris - Meat Bees

Called "Meat Bees" because the foraging workers become serious pests as they search for food and are attracted to protein (meat) and sugar (sodas). They have a painfil sting. Yellow Jacket's nest anywhere: meadows, gardens, hedges, forest edges. They usually nest in the ground or at ground level. Often they are found in fallen logs, tree stumps or rodent tunnels. Around people they are found under stairs, in fence posts, brick walls or in discarded mattresses, carpets, boxes or other similar items. Nests are made similar to paper wasps, (as they are part of the wasp family and not Hornets) building paper cylinders from chewed organic materials by using their sticky saliva to glue their nests with organized cells. Only the Queen of the nest lives through the winter. The males and workers are forced outside to die. In this way they most resemble Man. In this video, shot after the cooler fall weather has come, you see the Yellow Jackets eating a dead bat. This protein will be kept in the nest to feed the queen and the next spring's young, very similar to Homo sapiens.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Yellow
• Jackets
• Vespula
• vulgaris
• Meat
• Bees
• Picnics
• Bee
• stings

[rcjs2051]

I hate them bastards. I don't mind bumble bees and the honeybees. Anything else, when I find them, their either get smashed with a brick, stepped on(yes even barefoot, the sting isn't that painful) or the hive gets torched.

[padude64]

Do not screw with yellowjackets! If you kill one, they will throw off a phermone which the whole nest will attack you! NO JOKE!

[antofa123]

Repeat after me ... WASPS and they've been here a lot longer than we have! 

[Rairyujin]

people who say they hate wasps are fucking stupid they do alot of good, like pest control cross pollination. Just because they occasionally bother you during the summer because they want food is not a means to label them as pests, their stings don't hurt and they'll only sting you if you piss them off, just move when they are around you they are only active for 4 months of the year and only bother humans in late summer.

[longplainfirstnation]

They are wasps not bees, and I love them to death.

[jenny1274]

omg that is nasty

[Y0UNGxBLooD]

i got bit on the tongue and lip by a meat bee, then my mouth went numb, and luckily i am not allergic to them or i would be in the hospital for sure. and incase anyone is wondering, it randomly just flew in my mouth while i was walking, lol

[Biospark88]

Back in '09 I went on a camping trip with a bunch of teenagers on Santa Cruz Island, CA. The water pump near our campsite was swarming with these critters. Every time we filled up our bottles it felt like Russian roulette!!

[milli366]

euugghh i have a full on phobia of yellow jacket waps, they do not leave you alone, they are vile, aggressive, angry things and i hate them! yet i'm abserlutely fine with bees because they are alot more peaceful

[tall32guy]

For those that want to trap these, I saw a trap someone made once that he swore worked very well. He hung a piece of raw bacon over a empty cottage cheese container filled with bacon grease and sugar water. The wasps would be attracted by the bacon, go after the sugar water, and wind up being stuck in the grease and not be able to fly. lol

[tall32guy]

@henrig17 Yep! Thems the ones! hehe They like sweet stuff. :)

[tall32guy]

Yep very true about wanting the meat and sweet liquids. I've seen them around picnic tables at a couple picnics I've done, and they will land on the soda cans and drink, or land on a piece of meat and cut a chunk off, unless they are shooed away. Sometimes I will just watch them because it is interesting. hehe