What a beautiful, breezy, blue-sky day! I sit here on The Urban Porch ™ with Rudi, watching the busy proliferation of bumble bees, honey bees, black wasps, Blue-winged wasps and swallowtail butterflies hovering about. There are all sorts of smaller flying things I have yet to identify flitting around the potted plants too. The bees alight gently on the Rose of Sharon to gather pollen or poise around the hanging Lobelia, which seems determined to survive, despite one side of it being totally dead.

Rudi lies at the top of the porch steps like a small, fluffy Sphynx, eyes closed, nose slightly lifted, taking in the pleasant day.

The butterflies touch momentarily upon the cosmos before floating off on a puff of wind. Everything feels copacetic, everyone appears to be in harmony….. all, save one.

Somewhere in the recesses of my memory I can recall a friend stating, “Yellowjackets are assholes,” and I have to admit, in my experience that seems like an accurate assessment. Just about any time there is an encounter with one, that thought goes through my mind. Here we are on this lovely day, everyone is hanging out and getting along – except for this one jerk of a yellowjacket. It has been a malignant lingerer here for the better part of a week; I imagine it is the same one. Territorial, menacing, annoying, as it zig-zags crazily around my feet or dodges too close to the dog’s face. I am not eating or drinking anything out on the porch (although I would like to) and am not wearing any creams or perfumes. Neither is the dog. And yet, it persists.

Often in the past I have (carefully) gathered raspberries from bushes that were alive with honey-bees and never felt threatened, as they were busy doing their own thing, moving among the small, white flowers while we respectfully shared the spaces.

Years ago I had a friend who had allowed a number of black wasps to inhabit her living room. They would come and go through the open windows all summer and pretty much keep to the ceiling. I found this bizarre, and can admit was always a bit uncomfortable with these “roommates” while visiting her place. But apparently – as far as I know – everyone seemed to get along without issue.

While attending a yoga retreat one summer, hoards of giant Cicada Killer Wasps had made a multitude of individual ground burrows in a large expanse of lawn right outside the studio doors – doors that remained open during class. Have you ever seen one of these things? They are visually nightmarish – a couple of inches long – daunting to look at, to say the least. The philosophy of the holistic facility being “live and let live,” we practiced our mindfulness amidst these massively large and somewhat scary-looking creatures, which busily climbed in and out of the sandy holes they had created all over the grass, then entering and exiting the classroom, where they would find their way upwards and bounce up along the high ceiling. It was challenging, and yet probably a good exercise during Savasana (resting pose) at the end of practice, trying to divert your mind and accept their startling, yet benign presence.

The fact is, the honey and bumble bees, most black wasps, and the cicada killers are not looking to bother you unless you step on them, grab them or threaten their nests. But the yellowjacket is a different story – truly the asshole – who will hassle you, pursue you, sting you, and sting you again – for no apparent reason at all. Well, it thinks it has a reason, but clearly it doesn’t bother to rationally assess the situation first before violently overreacting.

There is a different one (just one, and I am assuming it’s not the same one, but who knows?) that hangs out in front of the house next door. When I walk past there with the dog, inevitably when he stops to do his business it will suddenly appear and begin its dance of intimidation. I noticed a number of them briefly took over control of the Rose of Sharon mid-summer, outnumbering the honey and bumble bees, but at that time still mostly just minding their business. But lately they seem to have given that up and have become invasive of personal space. Last weekend on the way to the farmer’s market, a neighbor just coming from there warned that the area was suddenly aswarm with them, mostly concentrated wherever baked goods and fruits were being sold, although not exclusively. Last summer, while walking uptown and nowhere near where I would think any of them would be, just out of the blue I was stung on the hand. It is the kind of sting that just keeps on giving, and that you don’t forget. Assholes!

After complaining about my repeated encounters with The Asshole to a fervently ecologically-minded relative who defended them, stating they are beneficial and integral to the ecosystem (and yes, I am quite aware they are all part of the balance…..but…but..but…) I decided to at least do a little more research on them beyond the obvious. Clearly they were named “yellowjackets” due to their yellow and black striped body (as a child I actually thought they were called “Yellow Jacks”). They are a type of wasp.

So what are they good for? In addition to seeking nectars and fruit, they are carnivores and scavengers. They are sometimes dubbed “meat wasps.” Earlier in the life cycle of the yellowjacket, they eat spiders, caterpillars, grubs, aphids, flies, and feast on other protein, like dead insects and road kill. Later in the summer or early fall is when they go looking for sugar and become a real nuisance, when they will come after your lunch, desserts and drinks. They will invade your hummingbird feeders too. Their aggression heightens.

They exist in a caste system of Queen, Drone and Worker, with nests which are celled and created of chewed wood and plant fiber. They do possess some level of insect intelligence. Supposedly they are able to figure out, learn and share information with the others about certain locations and when it is prime time to show up at a picnic site, instead of lingering around in the morning or afterwards when nothing is going on. They will arrive on schedule at an outdoor restaurant just around lunch time in anticipation. They really know how to crash a party.

Their radius of venturing is about one mile from their nests, which tend to be underground, or in rotted wood or logs, or within attics and walls of buildings. The ones who do the stinging are the females – I’m reading that a colony can consist of about two thousand (2000!!) to four thousand (4000!!!!) or more females, and they have been known to grow to fifteen thousand (15,000!!!!!) – kind of a disturbing thought. If you swat or kill one, they are capable of emitting a pheromone that will attract all the other yellowjackets to come to their aid and attack you in order to defend their nest. Outrunning them might be difficult and they very well might chase you up to a mile. Unlike a honeybee, it is not one sting and done – they can (and will) sting over and over multiple times. Most of the fatalities in the U.S. as a result of stings are from the yellowjacket.

Researchers from the University of Michigan developed tests which revealed that along with honeybees, wasps are able to employ facial recognition, not only in order to identify the faces of other wasps, but of humans. That’s pretty freaky (and sort of unnerving) stuff. They will remember you.

Some birds make yellowjackets part of their diet, as apparently this insect which eats protein is subsequently high in protein. Catbirds, Blue Jays, Cedar Waxwings, Sparrows, Tanagers, Purple Martins, Warblers, Bluebirds, Cardinals and Woodpeckers are some from off that list. More reason to love birds! Racoons, skunks and bears tend to be their natural mammalian predators. I think opossums might be also. I haven’t seen our usual resident night visitors in a little while, but knowing this, I eagerly invite them to come around again as soon as possible and feel free to do some digging.

So back to the porch….after days of being discouraged from sitting outside due to this nuisance, I decided it needed to be actively thwarted. It was time for this jack to hit the road. I certainly wasn’t going to swat the thing and bring out the angry masses, and I didn’t want to break out the heavy duty wasp spray, instead opting for some natural herbal disinfectant containing essential oils like peppermint and thyme that happened to be in the bathroom, which I spritzed around whenever it started getting too close in an attempt to discourage it.

At first that seemed to do the trick, as it took off. But eventually it returned, lingering uncomfortably close to the hem of my pants, brushing my ankle with its dangling legs. It had been encouraged to leave, it decided it wasn’t going to leave, and at that point I decided enough, it was me or it. So I sprayed directly at it, which didn’t appear to deflect it at all. This thing was on an inner mission. And so I kept spraying the herbal spray at it until it finally wasn’t moving anymore, then flicked it off the porch. I guess it never sent out any pheromones, because luckily, none of its clan arrived. I am hoping tomorrow there will not be another one to step in and take its place.

But you know, I felt a tiny twinge of guilt. Although I list yellowjackets up there even ahead of mosquitos, scutigera centipedes and horseflies as major “Nope” insects on my personal roster of intolerable things, I still felt badly about it…sort of. What’s more, in a brief, surreal, Twilight Zone-type scenario moment that played out in my imagination, I thought, “What if this was actually some kind of harbinger from the beyond, some kind of soul, or someone I once knew, trying to make contact and send a message?” Well, I don’t really believe that, but it’s a pretty awful “what if” kind of thought, isn’t it?

(Hit the road Jack and don’t you come back no more, no more, no more, no more)
(Hit the road Jack and don’t you come back no more)
What you say?
(Hit the road Jack and don’t you come back no more, no more, no more, no more)
(Hit the road Jack and don’t you come back no more)

~*~

“Hit the Road Jack” – written by Percy Mayfield 1960, recorded by Ray Charles 1961