Stung

A friend of mine once told me that Ive somehow become a connoisseur of stings because I was able to tell the difference between an ant sting, a bee sting and a wasp sting.. Please dont think that I go round purposely getting stung by various insects just to have this very mild super power, I have worked in gardening long enough to have suffered the more painful side of these insects. Its kinda  hard to describe how I know the difference, its something to do with the intensity of the pain and the number of times I get stung. If Im stung once and it bloody well hurts, is almost always a bee, when that happens then I run for antihistamines. Yay for allergies. If its not as an intense but itchy pain, then Ive been done by an ant and for some reason flying ants love to fall down my top and get stuck in my bra, then it becomes a race to get the bastard out without flashing the general public. Bull Dog Ants are another story, I havent been stung by one of those in my career (touch wood) and only as a child. I can remember it hurts alot but a different type of pain to a bee sting, so Im excluding them in this story, sorry science. Wasp stings tend to be as intense with pain as bee stings, however they have the ability to keep stinging til their venom runs out. This makes it very not fun. I had a paper wasp crawl up the back of my shirt once and sting me about 7 times from the top of my trousers to about 10cm up my back (it clearly couldnt figure out how to get out of my shirt), and you could tell the difference from the first sting (the largest) to the final (it was a little larger than a pin head). 

If you ever need to get rid of a paper wasp nest, then do so on a cold morning. The colder the weather, the more sluggish the insects are. However if you have little choice but to remove it on a warm day, then distance is your friend. Either spray it from a good meter or so back from the nest, or bat it off what ever it is on with a broom handle. When the nest falls on the floor, the adults will be angry, but will leave within a day or so. Do NOT try to bat out a nest if it is in a tight spot (like under fence capping, etc) or if the nest will land anywhere near you, unless you wish to be stung of course.

Some useless information for you, the paper wasp in this photo has a cattarpillar in its mouth. This is not for the wasp, paper wasps drink nectar. Their larvae, however, require a source of protein to grow. So the wasps catch the cattarpillars, chew them up and feed them to the growing larvae. I have also heard that paper wasps are a natural predator of fruit flies, but I have had trouble researching this so I cant verify how true it is. 

I also want to apologise for the length of this blog. I dont normally like to make them this long, however my phone broke so I am currently unable to take photos at work until I save up and buy a new one. So right now Im working with stock photos that I have taken over time but havent had chance to upload. So please bear with me, trying to get as much in with limited photos :) will let you know when I can get a new phone.