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

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