A bee has never aggressively investigated my lunch and refused to fuck off when I'm eating outside.

I don't know, they're not all created the same. When I'm in the pool, I let bees land on me, or will fish them out of the water with my hands. Paper wasps look super frightening, but they're even more docile than honey bees. Yellow jackets on the other hand are complete assholes. We had a nest of them in the yard once and they would go way out of their way to sting people, just for the hell of it. Like not anyone close to the nest or anything, just someone on the patio chilling. I would leave a beehive, but I eradicated the yellow jacket nest.

I used to own a house with two pear trees. I learned to pick up any fruit that dropped, because the pear juice would ferment under the skin in the warm sun, the wasps would pierce the skin and drink the pear liqueur, and then relentlessly chase me around the yard. It turns out that wasps are belligerent drunks, which shouldn't be surprising.

This is wasp propaganda.

Bees have never chased me down to sting me. Wasps however...

this fuck stung the back of my head last week for the sin of taking out the trash.

This is clearly wasp propaganda because wasps are not cool. They will actually attack you for no reason and then fly away thus indicating they could have always flown away.

Meanwhile bees completely ignore you.

A few months back I was visiting my retired parents, and I wanted to break the routine a bit and decided to sit at a lakeside table we never used because it was redundant.

As I walked up to the table and sat my stuff down, I heard a “FWOMP” followed by a sound I can only describe as “chitinous rubbing”. I slowly checked my surroundings until I noticed an almost basketball sized mass of wasps waking up that had fallen with part of a hive underneath the table. In a moment of extreme calculation I decided the only one of six things on the table worth risking stings for was the tablet, and I sprinted for the first time in years to get away.

So, I guess thanks to the wasps for the fun new core memory.

Last time I was stung by a wasp I was just standing on the street. I wasn't even moving. I was standing for about 30 minutes waiting when suddenly a wasp came, stung me on the neck and went away flying.

It was a "fuck you in particular" with qll the letters.

I think we can all agree this fucker deserves some hate, though:

I've been stung by a bee exactly twice in my life. Both unfortunate accidents where the bee and I collided.

I have long since lost count of how many times I have been stung by wasps just for being near them.

Bees don't make nests above my door, or under my patio awning. Or generally everywhere outside I need to be. Fuck them wasps.

One of them is chill and just zooms around to pollinate. The other tries to get into every place I don't want it to be violently and then starts stinging when it inevitably gets stuck. Wasps always try to get into my food, fly somewhere in my clothes where it'll inevitably get stuck, fly into my face, etc.

I've been stung multiple times by both. Bees was always my full idiocy (I was obsessed with insects as a kid). Wasps was never my fault though, those cunts just put themselves in harms way only to "defend themselves" when the inevitable happens

The nest of meat-eating vulture bees:

Many wasp species are quite gentle. We get a lot of great golden digger wasps on our spotted bee balm and despite looking quite scary, they are quite gentle and avoid human contact.

We have a bird bath and when the water has evaporates, the blue mud dauber wasps will sit on the side and very patiently watch me refill it.

They eat parasites and protect the garden. Truly, the more the merrier.

Yeah but maybe if an invasive species didn't try to nest IN MY FUCKING LIGHT FIXTURES then we wouldn't be having this convo

I'm usually surrounded by paper wasps who don't really seem to care unless you actively injure them. Have been bumped many times and they contonued on their way.

I've heard yellow jackets are usually the type to screw you over because they can.

(Un)fortunately, afaik yellow jackets are actually a pretty effective means of pest control for several crops because they more aggressively collect protein for their larvae.

My dog got attacked by a colony of yellowjackets for having the audacity to go near their nest that was just on the other side of our fence line. He ended up in the ER for anaphylaxis. The neighbor's dogs got stung too, though they weren't allergic. Those little cunts can all die in a fire.

Paper wasps I hate less, I just wish they'd stop trying to make nests on the eaves of my house. They're chill, but I just want them to find somewhere else to call home.

Not only do they kill honeybees, they even attack each other. Wasp bed.

I got stung by a wasp when I was a kid literally just for sitting in the backseat. I had done nothing at all, and I got stung like three times.

I'm a gardener and every time someone approaches my door to solicit pest management, I ask if it will kill the wasps and spiders. Every single time they share an excited yes, I get to tell them that I don't kill my gardening coworkers.

Wasps and spiders eat the bugs that eat my crops. Pesticides also greatly increase your risk of health issues. No thank you.

My favorite wasps are the wood-boring parasitoid varieties. Ovipositors twice as long as the rest of their bodies, and they drill holes in trees and logs to get to the grubs in the wood to lay an egg. They're incredibly chill to be around and tons of fun to watch while they work

Got stung as a stupid kid who found a few piles of dead branches you could bounce on like a trampoline. Yeah, turns out one of them had a nest underneath, and the tenants weren't quite happy with the upstairs neighbour partying so hard the ceiling came down.

Absolutely my fault, no question about it, and my only feeble defense is "I didn't know".

My issue is now, that I struggle with seizing up in panic if I know (or think) there is one mear me. Not the "shrieking trying to run away" kind of panic, just freezing in place, struggling to breathe or move. I can't chase them away or anything, even if they were docile and harmless enough.

It's really because bees are fuzzy and able to be seen in a cute light whereas wasps are more metal and scary looking.

The parasitic wasps can fuck right off. I worked in the southern I25 corridor of Colorado for a while and saw Tarantula Hawks. My first thought was that I had seen a humming bird the first time I saw one - they are that big. The poor little male tarantulas are just venturing for a end of life hookup and then they have to worry about being eaten alive by the spawn of these fuckers. Poor bastards.

Nothing personal against wasps. But I prefer them far away from me. Which often comes into conflict with their interests, as they have this nasty tendency to invade the space I occupy, as in my house, my patio, the places I have to go in order to work, etc. If they ignore me, I'll show the same respect. If stingers come out blazing, insecticide starts being sprayed.