Latest / Honey Bee Obscura Podcast / Plain Talk: Other Stinging Insects (302)

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Plain Talk: Other Stinging Insects (302) · Honey Bee Obscura Podcast

0:06
Hey, listeners.
0:08
Just like that, almost overnight.
0:12
It was fall.
0:13
It was autumn.
0:15
You know, I always give you a weather report when we start.
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It's just a beautiful early fall day
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Blue skies.
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Bees are out.
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Then
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we're going to go back and check on them.
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Before I do that though, I know this is a
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bee podcast, but can we just talk about another insect just for a few minutes before we do that?
0:37
Listeners, I'm Jim Tew, and I come to you here once a week at Honey Bee Obscura where I try to talk about something to do
0:44
with plain talk beekeeping, but today for just a minute
0:48
I want to talk about insects
0:50
other than
0:52
Welcome to Honey Bee
0:54
Obscura, brought to you by Growing Planet Media, the producers
0:59
of the Beekeeping Today
1:00
podcast.
1:02
Join Jew Tew, your guide through the complexity.
1:06
The beauty, the fun, and the challenges of managing honey bees.
1:11
Jim hosts fun and interesting guests who take a deep dive into the intricate world of honey bees.
1:18
Whether you're a seasoned beekeeper or just getting started,
1:21
Started.
1:21
Get ready for some plain talk that'll delve into all things honey bees.
1:26
Years ago, under Kim
1:28
's
1:29
supervision, I tried to put out a wildflower garden.
1:34
The bigger garden just turned kind of into a weed garden which had a lot of native plants in it.
1:40
But one of the ones right here in front of my shop, it's
1:43
I bet it's not
1:45
30 inches
1:47
By
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ten
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feet.
1:50
And through the years it's really become mostly milkweed and a and a a few other flowers.
1:56
Most of the diversity has gone.
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And I
1:59
I gotta
2:00
make this short.
2:02
The milkweed was completely unexciting.
2:05
Nothing happened.
2:05
And last year I had several monarch larvae on it
2:10
But listeners, about the middle of the summer, all of a sudden, the butterflies went crazy for that milk weight and at one time on that spot about two feet
2:19
by about ten
2:20
feet
2:21
I had
2:22
20 monarch
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larvae
2:25
on
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about 10 or 15 milkweed plants.
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And through the summer
2:30
they maintain
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that number.
2:31
I don't know where they go.
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There's a few hanging off the shop here
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where they
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where
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they tried to you know
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build a chrysalis.
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I don't know where they're going, but
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that
2:44
was just amazing and they absolutely stripped
2:48
Right down to the stem, those milkweed plants.
2:52
So if it matters to you, I had a bumper crop
2:58
of
2:58
milkweed butterflies this year on just a minimum number
3:04
of milkweed plants
3:08
I'm gonna take the 75 yard walk back to the shop.
3:12
But I'm gonna stop by this hibiscus plant.
3:15
They've all
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they've all flowered and are gone
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Golden
3:22
rods up in the field.
3:24
We'll check that out later.
3:28
The main thing I want to talk to you about today is the county fair
3:34
With some friends I went to the county fair, which
3:37
usually one time's enough for me, just look at the chickens and
3:41
the big draft
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horses and whatever.
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And as I was eating a barbecued
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chicken, I noticed that there were yellow jackets all around
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wanting to eat with me there
3:54
too.
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Let me get through the barn
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here.
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And one of my
4:02
co
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diners.
4:05
And
4:05
didn't know him from anyone.
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It was just sitting there and he said, I don't know what was all these bees.
4:10
It used to be flies.
4:12
Now it's just bees.
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I'm in the bee yard
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now
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Many years ago, a young Jim Too
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would have taken him on
4:21
and explained that that in fact
4:24
was not honey bees, that that was yellow
4:26
jackets.
4:28
But I just let it go.
4:30
I didn't say a word.
4:31
But I did note
4:34
again
4:35
that honey bees, honey bees get the blame.
4:40
for all of the bees that are around the garbage bins and
4:44
trying to get to the sweetness that you're having at the county fair.
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And it's always a
4:50
major issue
4:52
At those events.
4:54
And our bees get the blame for it.
4:57
So the ones we have to watch for
4:59
primarily.
5:01
are
5:01
are yellow jackets
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because they're the one that really
5:05
blindsides
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people, surprises them, s
5:09
scares them.
5:10
I mean how many stories do you want?
5:11
I
5:12
was on my tractor years ago, not too many years ago, but years ago cutting grass
5:18
and I noticed my neighbor across the street walk out to her mailbox
5:23
and as I was turning the tractor around I was going to speak to her.
5:26
And she went into all this jumping frenzy
5:29
responsive mode
5:31
and was slapping herself
5:34
and as
5:35
after a bit she came over and she said that
5:37
a waf's nest
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had
5:40
built in her mailbox and she didn't know it and that the bee
5:44
just stung her.
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And could I help her with it?
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So
5:49
yeah, I
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took up some bee gloves and went over and tore down the little
5:54
the little nest
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and
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It was gone.
5:59
But I was intrigued at that point.
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Clearly, a single-tier
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wasp's nest, and she said that it was a bee that stung
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her.
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Just because they
6:11
've you got bees on the street.
6:13
The most interesting situation
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I noticed the guy at the end of the street
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was
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really
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go
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going crazy splitting wood.
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I mean he's got enough wood to
6:23
To be drawing out there for about three seasons.
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Maybe that was his intent.
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I don't know.
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I stopped by one day to ask
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if he was selling that or what he was doing with it and he explained that no it was all for him.
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That he would probably let some go if I
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if I needed a few pieces.
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And I told him mine
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was
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just a burn outside
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And then I'd stop
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back by and talk to him.
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He said, Well I
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where do you live down there?
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There's some guy down there who has bees.
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Uh I think it's right by that lane.
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Are you anywhere near him?
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And I said, Well
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actually I am that guy down there
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Who has bees.
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I didn't know this guy.
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I still don't know his last name.
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His first name was Josh.
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I don't think he would mind me telling you that.
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And before Josh even knew who I was, somebody had told him that I've got bees down here.
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With that in mind
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,
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You're gonna get cold a lot.
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If you're new to this, let's take a walk.
7:21
If you're new to this
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And people bee begin to understand that you're the B
7:27
person, you're going to get calls for B
7:30
s
7:31
for bee stuff that's not bee stuff at all.
7:34
Let's take a break.
7:36
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partners in Better Be
8:29
Keeping.
8:30
It's a great day for a walk.
8:33
The leaves are just starting to fall, they're just beginning to turn.
8:38
And
8:38
it's that time of the year.
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where
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a hornet nest will turn up.
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That's been there pretty much all summer
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and nobody knew it
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until the leaves drop
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And a neighbor down the street
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called me and said that they had
8:56
a big hornet
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nest
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That's right on the edge of
9:02
the tree limb
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and it's grown so much that it's sagging down and
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they're afraid
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that they're gonna hit it with their head
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as they mow grass.
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Well, you know, what do I know about hornets?
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I know as much as
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as anybody else, you know, I know they're not bees.
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And I went down
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after dark
9:25
and this was my plan.
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It was on a
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on a springy, low-hanging limb.
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But it was about eight feet up.
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They were never gonna hit it with their head.
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And the nests had been there all summer and had done nothing.
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When I looked at the nest, it was just a beautiful, beautiful piece of artwork that the insects had made, but nope
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It's dangerous and it's gotta come down.
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So
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with my wife there
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standing a safe distance back
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to call 911
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if I had to, I went up a ladder
10:00
And I gently
10:02
put a black garbage bag
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over
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the nest
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And then
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I crushed the bag in my hand, you know, around the limb.
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I'm showing you now what what I was doing.
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I was holding the limb with the bag crushed in my hand.
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And then without holding on with either hand, I reached up and clipped off the limb.
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And there was an ominous
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vibrational
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buzz.
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In that bag
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that can only
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be described as intimidating.
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I need to be clear, I did have my bee gloves on and I had my bee suit
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on
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And I
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admonished everybody else to step away.
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Nobody was out there, I was doing it dark, just my wife.
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And like I said, she was my emergency contact because this was the first hornet
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's nest.
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that I had ever taken down.
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Coming down the ladder, I thought that I was just one step off the ground, and in fact I was three steps off the ground.
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Boom, I dropped right to the ground from about 30 inches up
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and fell right flat on my back
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and the entire time I was falling
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My thought was
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do not
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do not let go of that bug.
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And I didn't.
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I wasn't hurt.
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I was kind of banged up
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But I held on to the bag
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and the story basically ends there.
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I've got the nest hanging in my shop.
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It was
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perfect nest.
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I didn't damage it.
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It didn't need to come down.
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I'm sitting here in my front yard.
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And
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my neighbors
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finally got to the age where
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she can't stay home alone anymore, so her house is vacant
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Five years ago
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they had six hornet
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nests
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in their
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front apple trees, the uh
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the small apples.
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What are they called?
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The dwarf apples
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have
12:04
momentarily gone blank
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They're just decorative trees with a lot of blooms in the spring and
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not much
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fruit.
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And I was surprised at my neighbor.
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He was a
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he was a
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tough guy, an outdoorsman, but
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He wouldn't have those things hanging there, so he carefully destroyed every one of them.
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I don't know why they won't nest on my property.
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I would leave them here
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So
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ball-faced hornets are going to be
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a challenge for
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you
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too.
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They're going to have to learn to live with.
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They're not our bees, but we're going to be given credit for them.
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The
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wasp that I've talked about early on, they were the stinging insects of my life.
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They were ultra, ultra common
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in southeast Alabama
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hot
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climate
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under
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every
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barn
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eve, under every old truck fender
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that sat still for a while, that would be
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either a yellow
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Pallistes
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nest or a what we called at that time
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red wasp.
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They were bigger.
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They were bigger insects, had fewer populations, but they were always more intimidating.
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I grew up with those things.
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And somewhere I read as a kid that that wasps
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primarily sting
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movement.
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So I would climb up in the loft of the barn
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with a pen full of stones
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and lie flat on my back and throw stones at a wasp
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nest just to antagonize
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it.
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and then lay perfectly still.
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But that was not one of the smartest things I ever did.
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Even though it worked, I'm sure they respond to to sight and to odors.
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not
13:48
just a movement, but I thought I had some sophisticated science there that I could use.
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So I've had a long
13:58
combated relationship with stinging insects throughout my outdoor life.
14:03
And I went into to beekeeping with a bit of trepidation because
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Those things were, you know, they meant a lot to me.
14:11
They were meaningful.
14:13
And the pain of it.
14:16
wasn't
14:17
was always omnipresent.
14:18
When you start keeping bees, you were going to be stung sooner or later.
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Ironically, I was stung
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the very first day of B
14:25
class at at Auburn, the very first day, the very first
14:28
eleventh
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I was stung, so I got that over with.
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Can
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almost tell you a story about it, but I'll
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I won't go into it
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The last thing we need to mention is bumblebees, those big furry bumblebees and they're look
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alike
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but not the same insect at all, carpenter bees.
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Those bees are much smaller in number and though those stings are remarkably painful and sometimes you'll get a call
14:53
to eliminate them too.
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I don't know what to tell you to do, listeners.
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You can be a good Samaritan
15:00
and try.
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But then once you start putting out chemicals, seven or something on someone else's yard, I don't I don't know.
15:08
I don't know what we're incurring or what we should do
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So
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I just always play each one
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as
15:15
an individual case.
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I don't advertise it, I don't promote it.
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If I can get out of it, I probably will.
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and
15:24
I'd hope that they can find something else to do.
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I'd
15:28
usually tell them
15:30
if they can just hang on
15:32
and coexist with whatever the insect is, especially yellow jackets
15:37
By the second killing frost, they're going to be gone.
15:42
These insects get lumped in
15:45
with us
15:46
as beekeepers
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And
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I know just enough about them to
15:52
be up slightly above average, but I've never wanted to be.
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uh
15:56
yellow jacket
15:58
uh
15:59
expert or
16:01
bumblebee whatever I've I wanted to work with honey bees but you have to know
16:05
I think you have to know
16:07
Just enough about these other insects that sting
16:11
because
16:12
people are not going to differentiate them.
16:14
At the county fair, at a picnic.
16:17
on
16:18
a walks or Saturday afternoon on a paved path, there's going to be wasp and yellow jackets all over that golden
16:26
ride.
16:27
And people are going to refer to them, but more often than not
16:30
as bees.
16:33
So I'll close on this.
16:34
I don't have any advice other than just expect
16:37
that somewhere if you keep bees long enough and you become known for it well enough, you're going to have to ex
16:44
uh
16:44
help out a neighbor.
16:46
a family member, someone
16:48
with a bee issue that is not honey bees.
16:52
And it's interesting because
16:54
I'm a little bit fearful when I go work
16:57
insects that sting
16:59
that are not my insects.
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But I feel invincible in my bee guard.
17:04
That helps
17:05
a lot.
17:06
That's enough.
17:07
It's a beautiful day.
17:08
I'm gonna sit here for a while longer and just enjoy life.
17:12
I'll talk to you again this time next week.
17:14
I'm Jim.
17:16
Telling your
17:16
bye.