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Selects: Wasps: Not as cute as bees · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. Happy Saturday. We are rolling through COVID one
0:04
Speaker 1: episode at a time every other week with me, your host,
0:07
Speaker 1: COVID Chuck. I had it three times, so I can
0:10
Speaker 1: call myself that. August 4th, 2020, middle of the summer
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Speaker 1: during COVID, people are out and about a little bit
0:17
Speaker 1: as far as getting out into nature at this point
0:20
Speaker 1: because it's summertime, but they're still keeping their distance, hopefully
0:23
Speaker 1: still masking up, and hopefully listening to this episode at
0:26
Speaker 1: the time, wasps, You know what's coming. Colon, not as
0:30
Speaker 1: cute as bees. And you can check that out right now.
0:39
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey,
0:49
Speaker 2: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
0:52
Speaker 2: Chuck Bryant here. Jerry's out there somewhere, which makes this
0:55
Speaker 2: stuff you should nezzo.
0:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, old school insect dish from Robert Lamb.
1:02
Speaker 2: I know, it's got mouth parts in it, but it's
1:05
Speaker 2: no Tracy Wilson joint.
1:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's Tracy.
1:08
Speaker 2: But it's still good. It's super charming. Robert starts this
1:11
Speaker 2: article out from the perspective of a spider who has
1:15
Speaker 2: been dragged into a wasp's nest and is about to
1:19
Speaker 2: be eaten alive by a wasp larvae.
1:22
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:22
Speaker 2: It's pretty interesting.
1:24
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:25
Speaker 2: It's a good article, I guess is what I'm trying
1:26
Speaker 2: to say. And if you are not familiar with Robert Lamb,
1:30
Speaker 2: then friends, you are missing out on not one, but two, no,
1:33
Speaker 2: three really great podcasts that that guy has put out.
1:38
Speaker 2: What is it? Stuff to Blow Your Mind?
1:39
Speaker 1: Of course, the stalwart science tech, well, not tech, sort
1:43
Speaker 1: of science plus show.
1:45
Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah, yeah. In-depth, like super deep rabbit hole, interesting stuff.
1:49
Speaker 2: And then he did one called Transhuman.
1:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a fiction, scripted sci-fi. Very cool.
1:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then also he and Joe, who he does
2:01
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind With, also do Invention, too,
2:04
Speaker 2: which is kind of an in-depth rabbit hole thing about Invention.
2:06
Speaker 2: So check all those out, everybody.
2:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was fun to kind of get back to
2:10
Speaker 1: basics with a nice little insect cast on wasps. And, dude,
2:16
Speaker 1: I went outside today on my side deck to let
2:19
Speaker 1: the dogs out, and lo and behold, I looked— Whoop, whoop, whoop. What?
2:25
Speaker 2: You said who let the dogs out.
2:27
Speaker 1: Oh, sorry.
2:27
Speaker 2: You said let the dogs out, so I had to.
2:30
Speaker 1: I thought you were saying wait, wait, wait.
2:32
Speaker 2: No, no, I was saying whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop.
2:37
Speaker 1: Oh, boy. That was a wasp nest on the ground.
2:40
Speaker 2: Okay, good. All right. Sorry, did I knock the legs
2:43
Speaker 2: out from under that story?
2:44
Speaker 1: No, it was just a wasp nest, but it was,
2:46
Speaker 1: you know, the timing of it all. Was it live? Oh,
2:49
Speaker 1: I didn't poke it to see. It was not attached.
2:52
Speaker 1: I think it had fallen, so... My guess is that
2:55
Speaker 1: it did not have any more wasps residing in it.
2:58
Speaker 2: Man, that's got to be a real letdown because it's
3:00
Speaker 2: the middle of summer right now. So they're wanting to
3:04
Speaker 2: like grow. There was probably larva in there. Huh.
3:08
Speaker 1: Yeah.
3:09
Speaker 2: That's really weird. They must have abandoned it then. Yeah.
3:12
Speaker 1: And wasps are, you know, I think, you know, everyone
3:16
Speaker 1: loves the bees now because they should because bees are
3:19
Speaker 1: awesome and bees produce honey and we want bees to
3:22
Speaker 1: stick around. But I think wasps and hornets, which are
3:25
Speaker 1: a type of wasps, are still just so maligned. And
3:31
Speaker 1: they're the ones that people will reach for their can
3:34
Speaker 1: of raid to spray.
3:35
Speaker 2: With no qualms.
3:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you shouldn't. Don't do it. Let the wasp live.
3:40
Speaker 1: I'll go ahead and say it now. We're going to
3:41
Speaker 1: say it a bunch. But let them live.
3:44
Speaker 2: Totally, Chuck. Thank you. Yeah, we're here to open everyone's
3:47
Speaker 2: eyes to the function and purpose of wasps' existence. They're
3:50
Speaker 2: not like mosquitoes. Remember in the mosquitoes episode, we basically
3:53
Speaker 2: concluded that there's no reason for mosquitoes to be around.
3:56
Speaker 2: And they just are terrible. Wasps are not like that.
4:01
Speaker 2: And I think Robert does a really good job of
4:03
Speaker 2: basically pinning down why wasps get such a bad rap.
4:06
Speaker 2: One is that their stings pack such a wallop compared
4:11
Speaker 2: to other stinging insects.
4:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, it hurts.
4:14
Speaker 2: And we'll talk about their stings and the venom that
4:16
Speaker 2: goes along with it. which is so, okay, that's fair.
4:19
Speaker 2: Like nobody wants to be stung by a wasp. It's really,
4:22
Speaker 2: it can ruin your day. And then also the other
4:25
Speaker 2: thing is, is that if you pay attention to wasps,
4:28
Speaker 2: you realize that they live these really brutal, grizzled existences.
4:34
Speaker 2: They're predators. And in fact, in their habitats, they're apex predators.
4:39
Speaker 2: They're like sharks and lions. But for the bugs and
4:44
Speaker 2: sometimes small animals that live around there, Like, I didn't
4:47
Speaker 2: watch any of the videos that I could have because
4:50
Speaker 2: I'm just really over animal death, even if it's nature.
4:54
Speaker 1: Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah, that's Emily.
4:58
Speaker 2: When I was doing The End of the World with
4:59
Speaker 2: Josh Clark, like, I went into it just feeling fine
5:03
Speaker 2: about that. It's just nature. That's the way things work.
5:05
Speaker 2: And then one of the guys I talked to is
5:07
Speaker 2: David Pierce, who you and I talked to actually first
5:10
Speaker 2: in our Super Stuff Guide to Happiness. Oh, yeah. But
5:13
Speaker 2: I went back and interviewed him, and his whole jam
5:16
Speaker 2: is Like, we could actually eventually engineer the biosphere so
5:22
Speaker 2: that there isn't any suffering among animals. And, like, what
5:24
Speaker 2: we take as natural doesn't necessarily have to be that way.
5:28
Speaker 2: And it's really changed how I view, like, violence even
5:31
Speaker 2: among animals. So, anyway, the upshot is I didn't watch
5:34
Speaker 2: any videos. But one of the ones that I saw,
5:36
Speaker 2: the title was Wasp Kills Baby Bird. So that video's
5:43
Speaker 2: out there if you want to see that, but I
5:44
Speaker 2: just can't. I don't like to see that stuff anymore,
5:47
Speaker 2: you know? Yeah. I mean, I didn't really, like, enjoy
5:49
Speaker 2: it before, but now it just downright bothers me.
5:52
Speaker 1: Yeah. I get it. I live with a person who
5:56
Speaker 1: can't watch anything like that, so I get it. Yeah.
5:59
Speaker 1: So there are more than 20,000 species of wasp, and
6:03
Speaker 1: like I said, hornets are a kind of wasp, so
6:05
Speaker 1: if you hear, I mean, you would call a hornet
6:08
Speaker 1: a hornet, but you can't necessarily use them interchangeably, but
6:11
Speaker 1: A hornet is a wasp. And there's a lot of,
6:16
Speaker 1: you know, over that 20,000 species, there are a lot
6:19
Speaker 1: of different kinds and a lot of variety as far
6:22
Speaker 1: as what they look like and what they're shaped like
6:24
Speaker 1: and what color they are and how they like to
6:26
Speaker 1: live their life. But as with every insect cast, we're
6:30
Speaker 1: going to go over those body parts.
6:33
Speaker 2: Sure. Because mouth parts is in there somewhere.
6:36
Speaker 1: And it starts with an exoskeleton, just like all the
6:39
Speaker 1: little insect buddies have that. chitin exoskeleton and in the
6:43
Speaker 1: case of the wasp they are very segmented out they
6:46
Speaker 1: have three segments they get your head which has got
6:49
Speaker 1: those antennae the sensory antennae you got those mouth parts
6:53
Speaker 1: because they lick and they bite and then you have
6:57
Speaker 1: the very cool looking compound eyes and simple eyes these
7:04
Speaker 1: sort of kidney shaped eyes of a wasp that are
7:06
Speaker 1: very sort of signature.
7:08
Speaker 2: What are they known as in your italian accent Ocelli.
7:14
Speaker 2: So in the Italian, if a vowel follows a C,
7:18
Speaker 2: it makes a ch. Yeah, it makes a ch sound.
7:21
Speaker 2: If a C is followed by an H, it makes
7:24
Speaker 2: a ch sound.
7:25
Speaker 1: So is this really pronounced ocelli?
7:27
Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay. I think among biologists, they probably say ocelli.
7:33
Speaker 2: But since you're doing the accent, I wanted to set
7:35
Speaker 2: you up for a lesson in Italian.
7:37
Speaker 1: I appreciate that.
7:39
Speaker 2: Okay, so you've got the head. It has some eyes.
7:42
Speaker 2: It also has a brain, Chuck.
7:43
Speaker 1: Yeah.
7:44
Speaker 2: Which I saw supposedly wasps are among the smarter insects
7:48
Speaker 2: out there. They can recognize each other by face, by
7:51
Speaker 2: facial markings. Did you know that?
7:53
Speaker 1: Yeah. Hey, Steve. How you doing? Sting anyone?
7:56
Speaker 2: I'm doing okay, Ted. Thanks for asking. Just killed a
7:59
Speaker 2: baby bird. Some weirdo was filming it and put it
8:02
Speaker 2: on the internet.
8:03
Speaker 1: Well, actually, Steve would say, no, I didn't sting anyone
8:06
Speaker 1: because I'm a man and I don't sting.
8:10
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, that's a really great point, Chuck, which we'll
8:12
Speaker 2: talk more about later. You'd find the stinger in the abdomen,
8:16
Speaker 2: which is the third part, the lowest part of the
8:19
Speaker 2: wasp's body, but only in a female, which I think
8:22
Speaker 2: this is true for bees, too, if I'm not mistaken.
8:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't remember. We've done a lot of good
8:28
Speaker 1: bee stuff. Yeah, for sure. And then in between those things,
8:31
Speaker 1: you've got the thorax, which has the six little legs,
8:35
Speaker 1: and then those really quick flapping wings. Yeah.
8:40
Speaker 2: So in between the thorax and the abdomen, you have
8:43
Speaker 2: a very narrow waist, which usually is what gives away
8:45
Speaker 2: a wasp. You can look at it and be like,
8:47
Speaker 2: that's a wasp. It's like it's got a corset on.
8:50
Speaker 2: Unless it's a hornet. Hornets are much chunkier, more rotund.
8:54
Speaker 1: Yeah.
8:55
Speaker 2: But they are, like you said, a kind of wasp.
9:00
Speaker 2: And actually, I think the genus that hornets fall under
9:05
Speaker 2: is called Vespa. And Vespa in Italian means wasp. So
9:12
Speaker 2: hornets are wasps in Italian.
9:14
Speaker 1: Okay.
9:15
Speaker 2: Okay.
9:16
Speaker 1: So I think one of the coolest things about the
9:18
Speaker 1: wasp is the history and the evolution of this thing,
9:24
Speaker 1: along with some pretty horrific stuff that's going to follow.
9:28
Speaker 1: But about in the Cretaceous period, about 100 million years ago,
9:31
Speaker 1: you had to kind of take a snapshot of planet
9:33
Speaker 1: Earth to understand how the wasp forms. And back then,
9:38
Speaker 1: they didn't have all these flowering plants like we have now.
9:41
Speaker 1: There were a lot of conifers. And these evergreens depended
9:46
Speaker 1: on the wind to spread their seed around. They weren't
9:49
Speaker 1: counting on the insects to do this kind of thing
9:52
Speaker 1: at this point. And we should also mention that ants
9:55
Speaker 1: are a cousin of the wasp, which makes sense. They
9:58
Speaker 1: look kind of ant-like.
9:59
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think they finally figured out that ants evolved
10:04
Speaker 2: out of mud daubers. They're their closest relative.
10:07
Speaker 1: Okay.
10:09
Speaker 2: Which kind of makes sense. I think they have some
10:10
Speaker 2: ant-like behavior.
10:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, ant-like. So, during the Cretaceous period, these wasps were carnivores.
10:19
Speaker 1: and they preyed on spiders and other insects. And as
10:23
Speaker 1: plants started to evolve, they realized that, Hey, there's a
10:27
Speaker 1: lot of insects flying around, going back and forth. Like
10:31
Speaker 1: we're just using the wind to carry our seed around.
10:34
Speaker 1: Why don't we, why don't we get these insects to
10:37
Speaker 1: work for us basically? And they can do the job.
10:41
Speaker 2: Yeah. So that was the rise of the angiosperms. Um,
10:46
Speaker 2: which is, you know, whenever you think of a flower
10:48
Speaker 2: that the bee visits and moves from place to place
10:51
Speaker 2: carrying pollen, that's what an angiosperm is. Rather than having
10:56
Speaker 2: to just depend on the wind, you can depend on
10:57
Speaker 2: the insects. And so eventually over time, these wasps, these
11:01
Speaker 2: early predators that used to feed exclusively on other insects said, well,
11:09
Speaker 2: you know what, this whole nectar thing and the pollen thing,
11:11
Speaker 2: I can get with this. So they started to change
11:14
Speaker 2: their diet from insects to pollen and nectar. But the
11:19
Speaker 2: weird thing is, is rather than developing a way to
11:21
Speaker 2: feed their young from pollen and nectar, like honeybees, which
11:25
Speaker 2: I think is another reason people like bees and don't
11:28
Speaker 2: really realize it, realize it, is that they're little vegetarian
11:35
Speaker 2: vegan animals.
11:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe.
11:37
Speaker 2: You know, they don't hurt anybody. They'll still defend themselves,
11:42
Speaker 2: but they don't want to go hurt anybody. They're very peaceful.
11:44
Speaker 2: Wasps are not like that because even though they generally,
11:47
Speaker 2: most species of wasp, adults, eat nectar and pollen, they
11:51
Speaker 2: still kill other insects to drag back to their nests
11:54
Speaker 2: to feed their young, to raise their young on. So
11:57
Speaker 2: wasps are technically omnivores. At the beginning of their life,
12:00
Speaker 2: they're carnivores, and then later in life, they grow into herbivores.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, isn't that amazing? It is.
12:06
Speaker 2: Wasps are way more amazing than I realized.
12:09
Speaker 1: Should we take a break and talk about their stinger?
12:12
Speaker 2: Yes.
12:13
Speaker 1: All right. We'll be right back for Stinger Talk. All right.
12:36
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stinger Talk. I'm Chuck.
12:41
Speaker 2: I'm Josh. I'm, wait, no, I'm Ted.
12:44
Speaker 1: I guess that makes me Steve.
12:46
Speaker 2: Yeah.
12:47
Speaker 1: Wasp stings are tough. You kind of mentioned early on, it's,
12:52
Speaker 1: you know, you get a yellow jacket and that doesn't
12:55
Speaker 1: feel great. And obviously we're talking about if you're non-allergic
12:59
Speaker 1: and it's not like a legitimate threat to your health
13:01
Speaker 1: and it's just the pain of the sting that we're
13:04
Speaker 1: rating here. Yellow jacket sting isn't great, but a wasp
13:06
Speaker 1: sting And a hornet sting is really something else. I
13:11
Speaker 1: feel like it hurts more and for longer.
13:15
Speaker 2: And for good reason, because it actually does. Bee venom
13:19
Speaker 2: is its own thing. It shares a lot in common
13:22
Speaker 2: with wasp venom. Wasp venom seems to be this extraordinarily
13:27
Speaker 2: highly developed biological weapon that is this cocktail of different
13:34
Speaker 2: kinds of compounds. that all come together to produce a
13:38
Speaker 2: horrible pain sensation that lasts longer and has a greater
13:43
Speaker 2: impact on your body than anything the actual sting produces.
13:48
Speaker 2: And that's apparently the whole reason behind it, is it
13:51
Speaker 2: makes the wasps seem way less vulnerable than they actually are.
13:57
Speaker 2: It seems like they're way more powerful. And for all
13:59
Speaker 2: intents and purposes, they are. But, like, if you could
14:02
Speaker 2: take the venom out of the sting... the sting would
14:05
Speaker 2: do basically nothing to you. But because the venom is
14:09
Speaker 2: introduced by that sting, that venom is so potent, it's
14:12
Speaker 2: like one of the worst things in the world to
14:14
Speaker 2: get stung by a wasp.
14:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the actual stinger itself has a pretty remarkable
14:20
Speaker 1: evolutionary story. So here's what happens. In the prehistoric times,
14:24
Speaker 1: this parasitic wasp would use this ovipositor. That's actually the
14:28
Speaker 1: egg-laying organ. They would use this pointy thing to lay
14:31
Speaker 1: the egg On a living insect, like they would lay
14:35
Speaker 1: the egg on the caterpillar, then these little larvae would
14:38
Speaker 1: hatch out, and then they would eat that caterpillar, the
14:40
Speaker 1: larvae would. So at some point, as things are evolving along,
14:45
Speaker 1: Mother Nature says, you know what would be even better
14:47
Speaker 1: than this is if you could saw open that caterpillar
14:53
Speaker 1: with this ovipositor and lay eggs inside of this thing.
14:57
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what happened.
14:59
Speaker 2: Right. which made a lot of sense. And I think
15:02
Speaker 2: there's a lot of wasp species, or there's at least
15:05
Speaker 2: some that still do this. Like rather than build a nest,
15:08
Speaker 2: they just go find an insect host and lay some
15:11
Speaker 2: eggs on it or lay some eggs in it and
15:13
Speaker 2: then just let the larvae eat the inside out. But most,
15:19
Speaker 2: I think, have evolved to kind of use some different techniques,
15:21
Speaker 2: which we'll talk about in a little bit. But the
15:24
Speaker 2: stinger itself stuck around Even after it stopped being used
15:29
Speaker 2: to actually deposit eggs into the insects directly.
15:33
Speaker 1: That's right. And you talked about the venom that's obviously
15:36
Speaker 1: produced in the venom gland, stored in a little venom sack,
15:40
Speaker 1: a little burlap sack inside the wasp body. And then
15:44
Speaker 1: it seeps out. It's a barbless stinger. It's just like
15:47
Speaker 1: a straight little pointy thing. But it seeps out through
15:50
Speaker 1: these little valves and coats the entire stinger. And so
15:53
Speaker 1: they store this stinger inside of a sheath and are–
15:57
Speaker 1: always kind of ready to use it. And, you know,
15:59
Speaker 1: like we said, it's only the females because it was
16:01
Speaker 1: an ovipositor, but the males can pretend like, like they'll
16:05
Speaker 1: rear their little butt your way and say, stay away
16:08
Speaker 1: from me. You don't know if I'm a male or
16:09
Speaker 1: a female, right? You don't want to look too closely, right? Right.
16:13
Speaker 2: Which is just hilarious. But it also, didn't that show
16:15
Speaker 2: like a certain level of intelligence as well?
16:18
Speaker 1: I think so.
16:19
Speaker 2: Or at the very least there's some, yeah, to bluff,
16:24
Speaker 2: you know, that's, that takes intelligence. Um, Which is, I think,
16:28
Speaker 2: another indicator that wasps are amazing.
16:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like you sort of hinted at, the reason
16:33
Speaker 1: this venom is so powerful is it has a couple
16:37
Speaker 1: of functions. One is just the simple function of paralyzing
16:41
Speaker 1: those insects, and the other is as a defense. It's
16:46
Speaker 1: meant to sting something much, much larger and have that
16:50
Speaker 1: thing hurt so bad that it thinks it's hurt a
16:54
Speaker 1: lot worse than it is and just wants to get
16:57
Speaker 1: out of there, basically.
16:58
Speaker 2: Right. And then that combined with their very, usually very
17:03
Speaker 2: bright colorings, because, you know, usually the more colorful an
17:06
Speaker 2: animal is, the more toxic it is. It's just kind
17:08
Speaker 2: of a universal symbol in nature to just steer clear.
17:13
Speaker 2: And hornets and wasps typically are fairly colorful as far
17:17
Speaker 2: as insects go. So those two things combined can teach
17:20
Speaker 2: a larger animal pretty quickly to just leave them alone.
17:24
Speaker 2: And that's kind of how wasps have made it this long.
17:28
Speaker 2: I mean, They've been around for more than 100 million years,
17:30
Speaker 2: you know?
17:31
Speaker 1: Yeah.
17:32
Speaker 2: That's a pretty successful species or family of insects. Yeah.
17:36
Speaker 1: And that includes humans, obviously. Sure. If you go poking
17:40
Speaker 1: around a hornet's nest or a wasp's nest and you
17:42
Speaker 1: get stung, you're not going to finish the job. You're
17:46
Speaker 1: probably just going to get out of there.
17:48
Speaker 2: Yeah.
17:48
Speaker 1: Yeah.
17:49
Speaker 2: Hopefully. You can learn your lesson that first time, you know?
17:52
Speaker 1: Yeah.
17:52
Speaker 2: Or maybe you don't even have to learn it directly.
17:54
Speaker 2: You can just know to stay away from the wasp.
17:57
Speaker 1: So what's in that venom?
17:59
Speaker 2: Oh, some really good stuff. I actually found even more
18:01
Speaker 2: stuff than Robert included here. There's some peptides and some enzymes.
18:07
Speaker 2: Some of the enzymes include phospholipase A and B. Phospholipase
18:14
Speaker 2: A and B. And these actually break down the membrane
18:19
Speaker 2: lipid coating of cells in your body to basically spill
18:24
Speaker 2: their guts into your bloodstream. And that includes neurons. Neural
18:29
Speaker 2: cells can be spilled into your bloodstream when they encounter
18:32
Speaker 2: this peptide, which sends an excruciating pain notification to your
18:39
Speaker 2: brain saying, alert, alert, you're in a tremendous amount of pain.
18:43
Speaker 2: That's just like step one.
18:46
Speaker 1: Yeah. They also have norepinephrine in there, which stops the
18:50
Speaker 1: blood flow temporarily. And that's why I like that when
18:54
Speaker 1: I said it feels like it lasts longer. I feel
18:56
Speaker 1: like that's the norepinephrine at work because it just sort
19:01
Speaker 1: of sits in one place. And eventually the bloodstream is
19:04
Speaker 1: going to kind of dilute it away, but it kind
19:05
Speaker 1: of hangs out there for a little while.
19:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just mean. There's also acetylcholine, which actually goes
19:13
Speaker 2: to your pain receptors and stimulates them, right?
19:17
Speaker 1: Wow.
19:17
Speaker 2: And there's also histamines. And histamines are released by your body.
19:22
Speaker 2: They're responsible for the inflammatory response. But they also, the
19:29
Speaker 2: venom in a wasp's venom includes histamines directly, too, just
19:34
Speaker 2: to make sure that it gets that inflammation good and primed.
19:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then there's, I was hoping you would take
19:41
Speaker 1: this part because of that word. You want to try it?
19:44
Speaker 2: Hyaluronidase?
19:45
Speaker 1: Oh, well.
19:47
Speaker 2: I use hyaluronic acid under my eyes. Oh, do you really? Sure.
19:51
Speaker 1: What's that?
19:54
Speaker 2: It's like it's an acid.
19:56
Speaker 1: What's it for?
19:57
Speaker 2: You put it under your eyes.
19:59
Speaker 1: I don't know.
19:59
Speaker 2: I think for bags.
20:01
Speaker 1: Oh, like eye bags?
20:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just to keep your eyes looking sharp.
20:05
Speaker 1: Oh, wow. I noticed your eyes always look so sharp.
20:08
Speaker 2: I thought you'd notice eventually.
20:11
Speaker 1: So that thing that you just talked about and then
20:14
Speaker 1: something called MCDP, mass cell degranulating peptide. This stuff actually
20:21
Speaker 1: melts through the connective tissue between cells and basically just
20:25
Speaker 1: sort of it destroys those membranes and allows the venom
20:28
Speaker 1: to move a little more freely than it would ordinarily.
20:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the mast cell degranulating peptide, degranulating means that
20:38
Speaker 2: it basically goes to your mast cells and squeezes the
20:42
Speaker 2: histamines out of them. So not only does it contain
20:45
Speaker 2: histamines already, not only does it trigger a histamine response
20:49
Speaker 2: or release, it goes and gets it out of the
20:52
Speaker 2: cells that normally carry it around in your immune system.
20:57
Speaker 2: So it's just really mean, nasty stuff. One of the
21:00
Speaker 2: other things I saw that they've just started to kind
21:02
Speaker 2: of pay attention to is called bradykinin. And it's associated
21:08
Speaker 2: with chronic pain. So on top of acute pain production,
21:12
Speaker 2: they're like, how about a little dose of what it
21:14
Speaker 2: feels like to have chronic pain, too, in the mix
21:17
Speaker 2: of all of this stuff. And then, Chuck, tell me
21:20
Speaker 2: this isn't astounding. I got a couple more. One thing
21:22
Speaker 2: is just called antigen 5, which is as cryptic as
21:26
Speaker 2: it comes. They don't know exactly what role it plays,
21:28
Speaker 2: but they know it's a very powerful allergen. And then
21:31
Speaker 2: there's a couple of peptides that are antimicrobial, which prevent
21:35
Speaker 2: the wasp from contracting an infection from a prey that
21:40
Speaker 2: it puts its stinger in.
21:43
Speaker 1: Wow.
21:44
Speaker 2: Yeah. Isn't that amazing? Like, this is some amazing stuff. Yeah.
21:48
Speaker 1: And I didn't see, I saw that hornets can sting
21:51
Speaker 1: again and again and again. But I don't know about
21:55
Speaker 1: the wasp in general. Is that the case?
21:57
Speaker 2: Yes, definitely.
21:57
Speaker 1: Okay.
21:59
Speaker 2: Because a hornet is just a type of wasp. So
22:01
Speaker 2: you've got like mud daubers, the kind of wasp. A
22:03
Speaker 2: hornet is a kind of wasp. And there's like many
22:05
Speaker 2: types of hornets, but they're all wasps. That's right. You know?
22:10
Speaker 2: So yeah, they can sting again and again and again,
22:13
Speaker 2: which apparently is another reason why their sting hurts so bad.
22:16
Speaker 2: They can do this to you and inject this venom
22:18
Speaker 2: into you. I saw one expert interviewed on a different
22:21
Speaker 2: HowStuffWorks article. that said an average of 10 times. Like
22:25
Speaker 2: if you get stung by a wasp, usually you're going
22:28
Speaker 2: to get stung more than once, and it can be
22:30
Speaker 2: 10 times, I guess, on average. I don't know if
22:33
Speaker 2: they just pulled that out of the air, but they
22:35
Speaker 2: were a wasp expert, so hopefully not.
22:37
Speaker 1: Well, you know those murder hornets that are making the
22:40
Speaker 1: news these days in the States? Those things can kill
22:43
Speaker 1: small rodents with a full charge of a sting.
22:47
Speaker 2: Right.
22:48
Speaker 1: The Asian giant hornet, which they found, I think, three
22:52
Speaker 1: of them in the Pacific Northwest that they thought they
22:56
Speaker 1: got rid of last year, but it turns out they
22:58
Speaker 1: survived the winter. A queen did. And, you know, they
23:02
Speaker 1: call them murder hornets because they kill bees. And those,
23:06
Speaker 1: I didn't know this. It was a big, because it
23:08
Speaker 1: was just sort of a back page thing. But in 2016,
23:11
Speaker 1: a package of murder hornets was intercepted at San Francisco
23:15
Speaker 1: International Airport. And they destroyed that. So it didn't become
23:19
Speaker 1: a thing. But They're a real threat to bees, so
23:22
Speaker 1: that's why people are sort of writing about murder hornets
23:25
Speaker 1: now invading as an invasive species here in the U.S.
23:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean, like, it's really doing an injustice
23:33
Speaker 2: to the hornets, unfortunately, because calling them murder hornets, like,
23:37
Speaker 2: if you read some of the articles on it, like,
23:39
Speaker 2: people will say outright, like, you know, they can kill
23:42
Speaker 2: people very easily, and that's just absolutely not true. And
23:47
Speaker 2: it makes it sound like they're a threat to humans.
23:49
Speaker 2: Like you said, the big threat is to honeybees. And
23:51
Speaker 2: specifically it's to European honeybees because they haven't evolved around
23:57
Speaker 2: murder hornets or Asian giant hornets. Asian honeybees have, and
24:01
Speaker 2: they actually have a defense to where when the giant
24:05
Speaker 2: hornets show up, like you were saying, they just, like
24:08
Speaker 2: murder hornet is a good term if you're a honeybee.
24:11
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
24:12
Speaker 2: Because just a few of them showing up at a
24:14
Speaker 2: hive can just destroy a colony in a few hours.
24:18
Speaker 2: And they do it in a really brutal way. They
24:22
Speaker 2: decapitate the bees and just kill an entire colony in
24:26
Speaker 2: a few hours. And they do it because they're one
24:28
Speaker 2: of the few species that they're omnivorous, but most of
24:33
Speaker 2: their food comes from meat. They're mostly carnivores. So they're
24:37
Speaker 2: eating all these bees, basically. Human babies. Yeah, they just
24:41
Speaker 2: carry your baby right off out of its crib. But
24:45
Speaker 2: they can wipe out a whole colony like this. If
24:47
Speaker 2: they run into an Asian honeybee colony, those bees have
24:52
Speaker 2: developed a response where they'll swarm around one of the
24:55
Speaker 2: Asian giant hornets and they'll flap their wings a bunch
24:59
Speaker 2: and generate heat and they'll cook the hornet alive inside
25:03
Speaker 2: the swarm. That's their defense. European honeybees, which make up
25:07
Speaker 2: a lot of the honeybees, most of the honeybees in
25:08
Speaker 2: the United States, They don't have that defense. So it's
25:11
Speaker 2: a big problem if the Asian giant hornet gets a
25:14
Speaker 2: foothold here.
25:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it will pack a lot more of a
25:17
Speaker 1: punch too. They have about seven times potency as a
25:22
Speaker 1: honeybee's venom. And as far as the pain scale, they
25:26
Speaker 1: likened it, getting stung by a murder hornet is, they
25:31
Speaker 1: likened it to like between three and ten, like if
25:34
Speaker 1: you were to be stung by three to ten yellow
25:36
Speaker 1: jackets all at once.
25:39
Speaker 2: It's so awful. Yeah. Because the yellow jacket sting is
25:41
Speaker 2: nothing to sneeze at either. I mean, that's a kind
25:43
Speaker 2: of wasp, you know?
25:44
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't get, I haven't been stung in a long,
25:46
Speaker 1: long time. Knock wood.
25:48
Speaker 2: Knock on wood. I got stung a couple summers ago.
25:51
Speaker 1: I'm not allergic or anything, but, you know, my story,
25:53
Speaker 1: I told it back with the bee thing, was when
25:55
Speaker 1: I was hiking that time and I got tagged 11
25:57
Speaker 1: times in the face and neck.
26:00
Speaker 2: Oh, man.
26:01
Speaker 1: When I stumbled, it was one of those underground hives
26:05
Speaker 1: that I just walked over and, you know, you see it.
26:08
Speaker 1: two or three bees, you're like, oh, what's going on?
26:10
Speaker 1: Then you see 10 and then all of a sudden
26:12
Speaker 1: they're everywhere and you're just running like a moron through
26:16
Speaker 1: the woods toward the river basically. But yeah, I got
26:19
Speaker 1: hit 11 times and, uh, you know, that could have
26:24
Speaker 1: killed me if I was allergic out in the middle
26:25
Speaker 1: of nowhere like that. Sure.
26:27
Speaker 2: I thought you were allergic. So we just lied on
26:30
Speaker 2: the episode of the stuff you.
26:31
Speaker 1: Should know TV show. Yeah. It was painful that there
26:35
Speaker 1: was one I think that got the deepest on my
26:39
Speaker 1: eyebrow bone, my orbital bone. And it went straight through
26:43
Speaker 1: and I could almost feel it on my bone. And
26:45
Speaker 1: that's the one, like I had a hard time getting
26:47
Speaker 1: it out. It was so embedded. And it felt like somebody,
26:50
Speaker 1: and I know I used the same analogy back then,
26:55
Speaker 1: but it felt like somebody had a tiny little, you know,
26:58
Speaker 1: the little nails you hang pictures with. It felt like
27:00
Speaker 1: somebody had that poking that bone and they were just
27:02
Speaker 1: tapping it with a hammer in this like regular beat.
27:07
Speaker 2: That is awful.
27:07
Speaker 1: It was terrible.
27:09
Speaker 2: Man alive. Yeah, it sounds like you stepped on a
27:12
Speaker 2: yellow jacket nest because they nest in the ground.
27:16
Speaker 1: And they follow you, too. Like, they were going to
27:19
Speaker 1: come after me until I got there.
27:20
Speaker 2: Where are you going, huh?
27:23
Speaker 1: I think we should take a break, maybe, and talk
27:25
Speaker 1: about nesting right after this.
27:27
Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay, Chuck, so we're moving on from venom. I
27:51
Speaker 2: think we made our point. Venom from wasps is pretty serious.
27:57
Speaker 2: And if you want to avoid getting injected with venom
28:01
Speaker 2: from wasps, you want to learn to know what a
28:03
Speaker 2: wasp nest looks like so you can avoid the wasp
28:06
Speaker 2: nest altogether. Because some wasps are more aggressive than others.
28:11
Speaker 2: And if you get anywhere near their nest, they're going
28:13
Speaker 2: to be like, let me just give you a little
28:14
Speaker 2: lesson about getting close to my nest. And they'll sting you, right?
28:18
Speaker 1: Yes.
28:19
Speaker 2: You want to get away. So the kinds of nests
28:23
Speaker 2: that you see hanging from trees, that's a kind of
28:27
Speaker 2: wasp nest. That's a paper wasp nest. There's mud dauber nests.
28:32
Speaker 2: There's nests in the ground that are yellow jacket nests.
28:36
Speaker 2: Wasps make a bunch of different kinds of nests. And
28:38
Speaker 2: for you to survive in the world, you have to
28:40
Speaker 2: know what each one looks like and be able to
28:43
Speaker 2: sense them out with your nose.
28:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, when I think of wasp nest, in Georgia at least,
28:50
Speaker 1: I think of that honeycomb style where it's just a
28:55
Speaker 1: bunch of little tiny holes and it looks like it's
28:57
Speaker 1: made out of paper because it kind of is in
29:00
Speaker 1: a way.
29:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think those are bald-faced hornets. Or wasps. I
29:07
Speaker 2: can't remember which one.
29:07
Speaker 1: I think those are the wasps.
29:09
Speaker 2: And they actually chew up wood fragments that they'll get from, say,
29:12
Speaker 2: like your deck or if your kid only has those
29:15
Speaker 2: old-timey wood toys, they might chew those up if they're
29:18
Speaker 2: in the yard. And then they take that and turn
29:20
Speaker 2: it into actual pulp, like paper, and they spit it
29:23
Speaker 2: out and make basically a papier-mâché nest.
29:26
Speaker 1: Yeah.
29:27
Speaker 2: Which is pretty impressive. But that's why those things look
29:30
Speaker 2: like they're papier-mâché because they basically are.
29:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're light like papier-mâché.
29:34
Speaker 2: Yeah.
29:35
Speaker 1: And they're fairly intricate if you look at them. They have,
29:37
Speaker 1: some of them have what looks like little roof eaves
29:41
Speaker 1: um they can be they're like i said super light
29:44
Speaker 1: so they can be dangling from a really small sort
29:47
Speaker 1: of thread like uh i don't even know what you
29:50
Speaker 1: would call it just a Thread? Yeah, sort of like thread,
29:54
Speaker 1: I guess.
29:55
Speaker 2: Suspension cable?
29:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, suspension cable, exactly.
29:58
Speaker 2: We'll go with that because it sounds like it's a
30:00
Speaker 2: little sturdier. Although, is that the kind that you found
30:02
Speaker 2: in your yard today?
30:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, I found one of those laying on the ground.
30:08
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, you know the big hornet's
30:11
Speaker 1: nests that are the big sort of, also sort of
30:15
Speaker 1: looks like papier-mâché, but it's more gray and it doesn't
30:18
Speaker 1: have the little holes. It's just got one central entry point.
30:22
Speaker 1: And it's about as big as a football. Yeah. Those
30:25
Speaker 1: were sort of like country decor. Did you ever know
30:28
Speaker 1: anyone who had one of those in their house? Yes.
30:31
Speaker 2: Murderers, serial killers.
30:33
Speaker 1: We had one. My dad climbed up a tree to
30:35
Speaker 1: get one of these. It was emptied, thank goodness. And
30:39
Speaker 1: we had that thing, you know, mounted on a log
30:41
Speaker 1: above our fireplace for years.
30:44
Speaker 2: Really?
30:44
Speaker 1: Yeah. That was weird.
30:45
Speaker 2: Wow, that's fascinating. Yeah. I don't remember which kind that is,
30:49
Speaker 2: and I mean, I've looked at so much stuff about wasps.
30:52
Speaker 1: I think it was the white-faced hornet, if I'm not mistaken.
30:55
Speaker 2: Okay, is that who it is? All right, yeah.
30:56
Speaker 1: They're very aggressive.
30:57
Speaker 2: Those things can get pretty big, and they're big. Like
31:02
Speaker 2: you said, the size of a football, their nests can
31:04
Speaker 2: get pretty big. But yeah, that's a good one to avoid.
31:08
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that they were aggressive, huh?
31:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't want to mess around with one of
31:12
Speaker 1: those nests. You don't want to go poking it.
31:15
Speaker 2: From what I saw though, mud daubers, which actually make
31:18
Speaker 2: theirs out of mud, they're the ones that, you know,
31:20
Speaker 2: those tubes that usually come down from like the ceiling
31:22
Speaker 2: down the wall. Those are actually mud tubes that the
31:25
Speaker 2: mud dauber has made. And mud daubers, we should say,
31:29
Speaker 2: they're basically two kinds of wasps in the world, wasps
31:33
Speaker 2: and hornets. Social and solitary. And solitary is exactly what
31:37
Speaker 2: it sounds like. It's just a single wasp, a female,
31:41
Speaker 2: living on her own. She'll mate with some male wasp
31:44
Speaker 2: and then go off. make her own nest, either burrowing
31:47
Speaker 2: into the ground or if she's a mud dauber, she'll
31:49
Speaker 2: make a mud nest. So when you see a mud
31:51
Speaker 2: dauber's nest, like stop and be like, I respect that
31:55
Speaker 2: because that was made by one single wasp on her
31:58
Speaker 2: own with zero help whatsoever. She made that nest, which
32:03
Speaker 2: I just find extremely impressive by chewing up mud and
32:06
Speaker 2: just slowly but surely building it, spinning mud out onto
32:10
Speaker 2: the wall.
32:11
Speaker 1: Yeah. And if you're a social wasp, you are It's
32:15
Speaker 1: sort of bee-like in that they're working for the queen,
32:18
Speaker 1: maybe more than one queen even. But you have these
32:20
Speaker 1: male drones that are there to mate. And you have
32:24
Speaker 1: these female workers who build the nest and they hunt
32:27
Speaker 1: for food and tend to these little larvae. But it's
32:30
Speaker 1: basically all about getting the queen to live through the
32:34
Speaker 1: winter to the next season. Like they will all leave
32:37
Speaker 1: the nest. And I think the queen is the only
32:40
Speaker 1: thing that overwinters. Isn't that right?
32:42
Speaker 2: Yeah.
32:42
Speaker 1: Yeah.
32:43
Speaker 2: The queen. Yeah. If they raise queen larvae, um, the
32:46
Speaker 2: queen will, will live until the next winter and start
32:50
Speaker 2: over again, basically creating eggs of, uh, sterile female workers
32:55
Speaker 2: to help her to hatch and then help her build
32:57
Speaker 2: up the hive, raise, um, male drones or no, is
33:02
Speaker 2: the drone, the worker? No drones, a male that's just
33:05
Speaker 2: used for reproduction. Right.
33:06
Speaker 1: Yeah.
33:07
Speaker 2: Um, and then eventually raise little queens. Um, So it's
33:11
Speaker 2: pretty interesting, especially as far as social insects go. There
33:15
Speaker 2: are very few species of social wasps and hornets, but
33:19
Speaker 2: the ones that are, they're highly social, even among social insects.
33:26
Speaker 2: They have pretty intricate, complex societies. Some of the social
33:32
Speaker 2: wasp nests, I think including yellow jackets, will have multiple queens,
33:37
Speaker 2: and there's one head queen that, who has basically beaten
33:40
Speaker 2: up other queens to establish her dominance. And then she'll
33:44
Speaker 2: have the most eggs. And then the next layer down
33:47
Speaker 2: will have the second most eggs and so on and
33:50
Speaker 2: so forth. And that takes like a certain amount of
33:52
Speaker 2: cooperation to maintain and respect that type of hierarchy to
33:57
Speaker 2: keep that society functioning the way it should, especially considering
34:01
Speaker 2: you have to reinvent the wheel every year after winter
34:04
Speaker 2: comes and goes. Yeah.
34:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. And they talk to each other, too, in
34:09
Speaker 1: a way. They communicate, especially if there's a threat via pheromones.
34:14
Speaker 1: So that's why you are more likely to get swarmed
34:18
Speaker 1: rather than just like if you're an actual threat to
34:21
Speaker 1: a nest. They can send a signal that says, hey, everybody,
34:24
Speaker 1: this jerk over here has got a this kid has
34:26
Speaker 1: got a stick and he's coming at us. Yeah. Let's
34:29
Speaker 1: get them.
34:29
Speaker 2: And if they die, actually, they release that. It's like
34:33
Speaker 2: a byproduct of their death is releasing that same pheromone.
34:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, man down.
34:37
Speaker 2: Basically, they turn into like Harry Dean Stanton in Red
34:40
Speaker 2: Dawn where they're like, avenge me. I have that one
34:46
Speaker 2: written down.
34:48
Speaker 1: I guess you didn't see the video then of the
34:52
Speaker 1: tarantula hawk since you're not into those.
34:55
Speaker 2: No, but I've seen one in person, actually.
34:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, the pepsis wasp is known as the tarantula hawk
35:00
Speaker 1: because they lay eggs inside of a paralyzed tarantula, and
35:05
Speaker 1: the larvae eat the tarantula from the inside out. And
35:09
Speaker 1: I was like, I've got to see this. And, of course,
35:11
Speaker 1: on YouTube, there is a pepsis wasp battling it out
35:16
Speaker 1: with a tarantula, and it's no match. And it paralyzes
35:20
Speaker 1: this tarantula and drags him back, like, a great distance.
35:26
Speaker 1: You see a wasp pulling this tarantula across the ground.
35:30
Speaker 2: Which is much, much, much larger. But the tarantula, like
35:33
Speaker 2: you said, is no match. And even among humans, I
35:36
Speaker 2: think the tarantula hawk's sting is like a four out
35:41
Speaker 2: of four on the Schmidt pain scale. Like it's as
35:45
Speaker 2: bad as it gets.
35:46
Speaker 1: Because you know why? They ask Mr. Schmidt, how bad
35:48
Speaker 1: does it hurt? And he's like, oh, my gosh, it's terrible.
35:50
Speaker 2: He said, yeah, ow. But yes, and they're very bright
35:56
Speaker 2: blue and orange too, which is another indicator like stay away.
36:01
Speaker 2: If you see anything that's really colorful, just assume it
36:04
Speaker 2: can mess you up pretty good.
36:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't lick that.
36:06
Speaker 2: With the tarantula hawk, that's the case.
36:07
Speaker 1: Don't lick that colorful frog.
36:09
Speaker 2: So, but even if it's not a wasp taking down
36:13
Speaker 2: a tarantula and laying eggs inside it that eat the
36:16
Speaker 2: tarantula from the inside out, almost all wasp species, if
36:20
Speaker 2: not 100% of wasp species, Like we said, they raise
36:24
Speaker 2: their young by paralyzing other insects, dragging them to their
36:29
Speaker 2: nest and laying the eggs nearby, leaving the bug to
36:33
Speaker 2: be paralyzed and still alive when the egg hatches and
36:36
Speaker 2: larva crawls over and starts eating that bug alive. And
36:40
Speaker 2: this is one reason why wasps have such a bad
36:42
Speaker 2: rap because it's just such a brutal circle of life.
36:45
Speaker 2: It really is. Yeah, especially from the perspective of the insect.
36:49
Speaker 2: And apparently Charles Darwin said, when he witnessed this happening
36:53
Speaker 2: to a cute little caterpillar, that it made it difficult
36:56
Speaker 2: for him to believe in an omnipresent and beneficent God.
37:01
Speaker 2: Because what kind of God would allow a cute little
37:05
Speaker 2: caterpillar to do that? The thing is, Charles Darwin, I mean,
37:08
Speaker 2: he liked to putz around in the garden, but he
37:10
Speaker 2: was not a farmer. If you're a farmer, you're probably
37:14
Speaker 2: kind of happy to see a wasp larva eating a
37:16
Speaker 2: caterpillar because caterpillars eat your crops. And if you ask me...
37:21
Speaker 2: this is where we get to the part about the
37:24
Speaker 2: roles that wasps play in the ecosystem and why you
37:26
Speaker 2: shouldn't just go willy-nilly killing them.
37:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, they'll bring in wasps. Farmers will sometimes
37:32
Speaker 1: if they have, like, an insect issue because the wasp
37:36
Speaker 1: is going to take care of that naturally and you
37:38
Speaker 1: won't have to use, you know, insecticide and stuff like that.
37:42
Speaker 2: No, so plus also bees are usually kind of finicky,
37:45
Speaker 2: I saw, as far as what they'll pollinate and what
37:47
Speaker 2: they won't. Wasps are not at all finicky. They'll pollinate whatever.
37:51
Speaker 2: So they're non-selected pollinators, which makes them, like you can
37:55
Speaker 2: use them to pollinate any kind of crop, which makes
37:57
Speaker 2: them pretty helpful. And so they control other crop-destroying insects,
38:03
Speaker 2: and they also pollinate crops too. So they are pretty useful.
38:07
Speaker 2: So that means that you shouldn't just go around killing them.
38:10
Speaker 2: I think we should say it again.
38:11
Speaker 1: No, you shouldn't kill anything except mosquitoes, fleas, and ticks.
38:16
Speaker 2: And you also can't say, well, they're a threat to
38:18
Speaker 2: humans because I looked up some stats, Chuck. You ready
38:22
Speaker 2: for this?
38:22
Speaker 1: Yeah. You're not going to get killed from a wasp,
38:24
Speaker 1: are you?
38:25
Speaker 2: No. I mean, yeah, but no, you're not. So combined, bees, wasps,
38:31
Speaker 2: and hornets, and hornets are just another type of wasp.
38:34
Speaker 1: Is that so? Yeah.
38:37
Speaker 2: I hadn't heard. They kill about 62 Americans every year
38:42
Speaker 2: from anaphylactic shock, right?
38:44
Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
38:44
Speaker 2: By contrast— 300 Americans die from falling off of ladders
38:49
Speaker 2: every year. In the UK, get this, between 2006 and 2007,
38:55
Speaker 2: eight people died from bees, wasps, or hornet stings. I'm
38:59
Speaker 2: including bees here, by the way. And then in Australia,
39:03
Speaker 2: where you would guess that half the human population is
39:05
Speaker 2: killed off every year by bees and wasps and has
39:07
Speaker 2: to regenerate every spring. Now, between 2000 and 2013, there
39:11
Speaker 2: were only 27 deaths total For that 13 years from bees, wasps,
39:18
Speaker 2: and hornet stings, which is pretty astounding. But it all
39:21
Speaker 2: goes to say, like, don't listen to the murder hornet rap.
39:25
Speaker 2: The hornets and the wasps aren't out to kill you.
39:27
Speaker 2: They don't want you anywhere near their nests.
39:29
Speaker 1: But.
39:29
Speaker 2: They're not, like, trying to wipe out your family. They
39:33
Speaker 2: just want to be left alone, basically.
39:35
Speaker 1: The murder hornet rap? Yeah. Now, here is a hornet,
39:38
Speaker 1: and it's here to say, I come to kill peace.
39:41
Speaker 2: I love fruity pebbles in a major way.
39:44
Speaker 1: I think, I can't wait to re-listen to this one,
39:46
Speaker 1: because I'm pretty sure you said, that they kill 62
39:49
Speaker 1: million Americans every year. No. I think you did. I
39:54
Speaker 1: might have been hearing things. It might have been a
39:55
Speaker 1: computer glitch.
39:57
Speaker 2: Just 62. Okay. Six to the two.
40:01
Speaker 1: I really am curious if you said million.
40:04
Speaker 2: We'll find out.
40:05
Speaker 1: That'll be an Easter egg for us only. So, yeah,
40:09
Speaker 1: don't kill the wasps. If you have what you think
40:11
Speaker 1: is a wasp problem at your house, You really don't
40:17
Speaker 1: unless it's, you know, I mean, if you have a
40:19
Speaker 1: really big wasp nest like right above your front door
40:22
Speaker 1: or something, I could see maybe a case being made
40:25
Speaker 1: for removing it, having it professionally removed.
40:29
Speaker 2: Or if your kids are playing out back and there's
40:31
Speaker 2: a sinkhole from a Yellow Jackets underground nest where there's
40:34
Speaker 2: hundreds of Yellow Jackets.
40:35
Speaker 1: And if you're allergic.
40:36
Speaker 2: I could see getting that removed too.
40:37
Speaker 1: But in general, like wasps aren't after you. They don't
40:40
Speaker 1: want anything to do with you. They're not aggressive toward
40:43
Speaker 1: humans unless you come poking their thing with a stick.
40:47
Speaker 1: I love this. Robert says, and this takes like nerves
40:50
Speaker 1: of steel, and he's like, if one lands on you,
40:53
Speaker 1: don't panic. Avoid swatting it or making swift movements. Just
40:57
Speaker 1: kind of sit there and it'll quickly fly off. Like,
41:00
Speaker 1: I don't want to kill a wasp, but if a
41:02
Speaker 1: wasp lands on my arm, I'm not going to be like,
41:04
Speaker 1: all right, little fella, you're just going to give you
41:08
Speaker 1: some time.
41:09
Speaker 2: Go mosey along.
41:10
Speaker 1: No, I would freak out and flail. I wouldn't swat
41:14
Speaker 1: at it because... I feel like I would get stung
41:16
Speaker 1: for sure, but I would definitely do a, you know, ah! Right.
41:21
Speaker 2: You got to try not to do that. You have
41:23
Speaker 2: to listen to Robert and don't panic.
41:25
Speaker 1: Good luck.
41:27
Speaker 2: Every time I see don't panic in the wild, I
41:29
Speaker 2: just assume that it's a reference to the Hitchhiker's Guide
41:31
Speaker 2: to the Galaxy. Don't you?
41:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so.
41:35
Speaker 2: So there's standing still. That's one thing when one lands
41:38
Speaker 2: on you. Okay. Okay. That's great. Things you can do
41:43
Speaker 2: to keep them from landing on you, though, are to
41:45
Speaker 2: not wear white and yellow outdoors. Yeah. Okay?
41:49
Speaker 1: I like white and yellow.
41:52
Speaker 2: Yellow doesn't look good on me anyway. But those colors
41:56
Speaker 2: attract insects. You don't want to wear perfume because you
41:59
Speaker 2: may confuse them into thinking you're a flower.
42:02
Speaker 1: Sure.
42:03
Speaker 2: If you have your garbage can uncovered, don't stand next
42:07
Speaker 2: to it. You want to cover your garbage can.
42:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially if you're us. I always call it the
42:14
Speaker 1: stinkiest garbage can in Atlanta. I think it's so nasty.
42:18
Speaker 2: Ours is pretty bad too.
42:20
Speaker 1: It's a lot of years of cat litter.
42:22
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, that's a stink.
42:23
Speaker 1: Dog poop.
42:25
Speaker 2: And then you can take down nests yourself if it's
42:31
Speaker 2: below 60 degrees Fahrenheit or 15.5 degrees Celsius because they're
42:35
Speaker 2: probably dead in there anyway. So it's a good time
42:38
Speaker 2: to take it down. But for the most part, we're
42:40
Speaker 2: just going to go ahead and say don't take down
42:44
Speaker 2: a wasp nest that you want out of your yard
42:46
Speaker 2: by yourself. Just don't do it. Hire a professional. There
42:49
Speaker 2: are people who will take money in exchange for coming
42:52
Speaker 2: to get a nest out of your yard. You can
42:55
Speaker 2: give them money for that, and they know what they're doing.
42:59
Speaker 2: So you can feel good about that, about hiring them.
43:03
Speaker 2: And it also supports local business too.
43:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, and don't get that– wasp spray that sprays from, like,
43:10
Speaker 1: 20 feet away and just go home and, like, attack
43:13
Speaker 1: these nests with poison. Just don't do it.
43:18
Speaker 2: No.
43:18
Speaker 1: Stop killing things.
43:21
Speaker 2: What else you got? I got one more thing. You
43:22
Speaker 2: have anything else?
43:23
Speaker 1: Nope.
43:24
Speaker 2: Okay, so in Japan, it always circles back to Japan,
43:28
Speaker 2: doesn't it, Chuck?
43:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, if it's quality and good.
43:32
Speaker 2: Including the Asian giant wasp as well as yellow jackets
43:39
Speaker 2: and some other types of wasps. Japanese culture or culinary
43:43
Speaker 2: culture loves wasp larva. But to get wasp larva, you
43:48
Speaker 2: have to go out in the wild, find a wasp's
43:50
Speaker 2: nest in the summer, and then take it back home
43:53
Speaker 2: without getting stung and raise the larva yourself. And then
43:58
Speaker 2: when they're ready to go, you harvest them and eat
44:00
Speaker 2: them in the fall, which is pretty interesting in and
44:03
Speaker 2: of itself, right? Yes. It gets even more interesting than that.
44:07
Speaker 2: Because to find a wasp nest in the woods, what
44:10
Speaker 2: they do is they take raw fish. Japanese love raw fish,
44:13
Speaker 2: but they share some of theirs with wasps. And they
44:17
Speaker 2: leave it out as bait. And then when a wasp
44:19
Speaker 2: shows up, they'll take chopsticks and a little hunk of
44:22
Speaker 2: this fish meat that they have a string tied to.
44:25
Speaker 2: And they'll hand it to the wasp. And the wasp
44:27
Speaker 2: will fly off with the hunk of fish to take
44:29
Speaker 2: back to its larva, its eggs, with the string dangling,
44:33
Speaker 2: which makes it easier to follow back to the nest.
44:36
Speaker 2: And after doing this a few times, they're probably successful
44:39
Speaker 2: enough that they track the wasp all the way back.
44:41
Speaker 2: They don't lose it. And they find the nest, and
44:43
Speaker 2: then that's when they take it home and tend to
44:45
Speaker 2: the larva. And then they eat it in the fall.
44:47
Speaker 1: That sounds familiar for some reason. I might have heard
44:49
Speaker 1: that before.
44:50
Speaker 2: Isn't that cool?
44:51
Speaker 1: It's amazing.
44:53
Speaker 2: Amazing. Well, that's all I've got for wasp, Chuck.
44:57
Speaker 1: Wasp out.
44:59
Speaker 2: So since Chuck said wasp out, that means it's time
45:03
Speaker 2: for listener mail.
45:06
Speaker 1: I'm going to call this, Adam, I think you were wrong,
45:10
Speaker 1: and Josh was referencing They Might Be Giants. It's a
45:13
Speaker 1: long-winded title.
45:14
Speaker 2: Okay.
45:14
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, in your episode, How We Almost Got Rid
45:16
Speaker 1: of Polio, you read a listener mail that referred to
45:19
Speaker 1: How Flamethrowers Work episode. However, I'm somewhat sad that the
45:24
Speaker 1: reference wasn't made for the They Might Be Giants song. Istanbul,
45:28
Speaker 1: not Constantinople. Josh made the statement, and it was a
45:32
Speaker 1: wonderful wasted opportunity. Well, that's exactly what you're talking about, right?
45:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, I said not Constantinople.
45:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, you were talking about the They Might Be Giants song, right?
45:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course. This guy doesn't get me.
45:45
Speaker 1: He just didn't say, hey, by the way, that's the
45:47
Speaker 1: They Might Be Giants song.
45:49
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, open up for the spoon feeding.
45:54
Speaker 1: Just thought I'd drop you both a line. I love
45:55
Speaker 1: the show and enjoy listening to it daily to and
45:57
Speaker 1: from work, especially the wit and dry humor. Even though
46:00
Speaker 1: it goes over your head sometimes.
46:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, right.
46:02
Speaker 1: He said, it's very much my style, so much so
46:05
Speaker 1: that you aren't sure if there was a joke even told. Wow,
46:07
Speaker 1: this is getting very meta. You both make my commute
46:10
Speaker 1: tolerable and enjoyable. Thanks, guys. That is from Adam P.
46:14
Speaker 1: in Gulfport, Mississippi.
46:17
Speaker 2: Nice. Adam, for you, from now on, whenever I make
46:20
Speaker 2: a joke, I'm going to add waka waka at the end.
46:25
Speaker 1: That'll do it.
46:25
Speaker 2: That'll be just for Adam. Thanks a lot, Adam. We
46:28
Speaker 2: appreciate that. Thank you for listening to us and for
46:31
Speaker 2: letting us rag on you. We do it lovingly and jokingly.
46:34
Speaker 2: We hope you know.
46:34
Speaker 1: Of course.
46:35
Speaker 2: If you want us to rag on you, well, you
46:37
Speaker 2: send us an email and see what you get. Look
46:40
Speaker 2: up and see what you get. You can send it
46:43
Speaker 2: to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com.
46:49
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