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Max, this story actually made it to our local news on the Philadelphia stations here in South Jersey! Evidently a nest of over 100,000 wasps has been plaguing an area of New Zealand by attacking people, and Mike had himself lowered from a helicopter into their nest, high at the top of a tree, to poison them. I guess, now, he must be getting his "15 minutes" as some kind of National Hero up there? More details, please. 
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Dear WO'N: You don't need any damned helicopter to get rid of wasps. Just like bees, they will feed on sugar water laced with insecticide and take it back and wipe out the colony. Of course it also wipes out bees in the area, so any in hives would have to be removed. I used to keep bees, and worked with an old timer putting hives on cranberry bogs to pollinate the crop. He didn't even wear a head net, and he would get over a hundred stings before he even expressed annoyance. When bees sting, backward pointing teeth on stinger prevents bees from removing stinger, leaving little white poison sac, with smooth muscle still contracting and relaxing to pump venom into wound. He often had more poison sacs than hairs on his pate. Wasps can sting repeatedly, and their venom hurts worse. When I was about four years old, my mother took me blueberry picking. A path I wanted to go through was blocked by an old newspaper draped over a small bush. I gave it a kick and went through. It was a paper wasp nest bigger than a basketball, and I was clad only in bathing trunks. I got hundreds of stings. Never again did I go blueberry picking.
Wasps are also easily killed by just the fine droplets of petroleum base of sprays. They breathe through very fine tubes called spiracles which get clogged by the spray, so the wasp dies very quickly from lack of oxygen.
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Dear Max: you have overlooked fact I saw wasps come to get the poisoned sugar water. No need of climbing after them.
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Not only dismissive, but wrong as well Max. We had a wasp next under the base of a tree on our boundary. My neighbour and I used all kinds of chemicals to try to kill them off, but if you miss any at all you've failed. We finally dealt with it by burying the entrance under about a foot of clay. The wasps, presumably, starved to death.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Well, Dr. Bill, he was suspended from a helicopter in a special suit, and was swarmed with wasps...the nest was gargantuan...I've never seen anything like it! I just watched the footage...really. And Max, you mean we heard about this story all the way down here in New Jersey before you did!? 
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Dear CK You tempt me to suggest you deserved the wasps. I suspect I have had more experience with them than you have had. Of course Kiwiland excels in many things.
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What is it with blueberry picking?! I had the same experience as you Bill. Put my foot right into a wasps' nest. Let me just say I did not have the greatest weekend.
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deliberately not attaching this to any particular post:
Speak with contempt of none, from slave to king,
The meanest Bee hath, and will use, a sting.
----Poor Richard's Almanac
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I would be interested to know what such a large colony could feed on. And of course as a recent introuduction, there has not been the chance for natural enemies to develop or be introduced. They might also be very susceptible to BT.
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Do Zealanders speak waspishly?
[he said, in googlewhack]
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Dear Max: One thing that I had no way of anticipating is that your local control people are "fanatical" about protecting local species, to the point they apparently are insufficiently concerned about people. We have treehuggers here, but not that bad. Use of poison might kill many other species in immediate area, but they could be easily re-established after wasp extermination ended.
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Fellas!...Fellas!...Fellas! O how I love it when Dr. Bill and Max get into a tussle!  This is almost better than the one we had going down on Greek Mythology a while back! "Heyyyyy, get'chore front row seats, here! Just fifty dollars! Twenty-five dollars for the mezzanine! First come, first serve! Heyyyy, get'chore....."  
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Don't forget my cut, tyvm.A percentage, Max? Excuse me?...did we, uh, negotiate a percentage? "Heyyy, first come, first serve! Get 'em while they're hot! We got cheap seats, we got neat seats!..."
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Another assertion made from thousands of kilometres away with no knowledge of local circumstances, unless of course you are an expert
You're right, Max: only those living in New Zealand are knowledgeable enough to critique what occurs there. In this New Zealand is of course unlike US politics or the Middle East, on which everyone has sufficient expertise to opine.
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Dammitall, you can't withdraw now, just as I was about to accuse you two [in googlewhack] of carpal waspishness!
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OK, if you won't do me a cut, I'll just withdraw. Have fun selling tickets to a shadow
match.Well, come to think of it, why dont'cha step right on over here, Mr. Max...perhaps we do have something to talk about after all!...'course, the, uh, 'overhead' is high here, and other things, but I'd be more than willing to part with, say....ohhh....
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Anybody here ever read a children's book named The Giant Jam Sandwich ?
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Ok, wofa, you gonna give us a hint, or what? Cool thread, Sweet WO'N! Thanks! (not a lot)
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The Giant Jam Sandwich, written by John Vernon Lord (with Janet Burroway), published in 1972. It's about a small town which suffers a wasp inavsion: "One hot summer in Itching Down, Four million wasps flew into town. They drove the picnickers away, They chased the farmers from their hay, They stung Lord Swell on his fat bald pate, They dived and hummed and buzzed and ate..." The townspeople finally got rid of them by trapping them in a giant sandwich (jam, of course) and then airlifting the whole thing out to sea. Much cuter in the hard copy, and the illustrations, than I can provide here. I just thought it was germane to the discussion. (New thread possibility here - where does the word "germane" come from? Don't have my dictionary handy) For more information see http://www.adh.brighton.ac.uk/schoolofdesign/MA.COURSE/LGJS.html
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Main Entry: ger·mane
Pronunciation: (")j&r-'mAn
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English germain, literally, having the same parents, from Middle French
Date: 14th century
1 obsolete : closely akin
2 : being at once relevant and appropriate : FITTING <omit details that are not germane to the discussion>
synonym see RELEVANT
- ger·mane·ly adverb
(from "Online version of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary")
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wofahulicodoc's questionSo is germane germane to the conversation?
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Didn't used to be, but I guess it's bludgeoned its way in now. I'll take Definition 2.
Strange, it's not exactly from "germ-" the seed as one might think, but seems to follow geneology in the other direction, if it's "having the same parents."
Anyhow, The Giant Jam Sandwich is fun to read to kids or grandchildren, in addition to dealing with certain current events alluded to above. [returning-the-thread-to-its-point-of-origin-e]
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I been bee stung lots of times (as a kid, who wasn't?). I been stung by wasps (got swarmed, but only seven stings on my leg, thought I got snake bit again). I been stung by hornets (felt like someone swatted me in the head with a baseball bat - yes, I've been swatted several times in the head with a baseball bat, so I do have a basis for comparison). I'd say the wasps hurt the worst, then hornets, then bumble bees, then honey bees.
Snakes only hurt a little (been bit hundreds of times in a single day), but I've never been bit by a poison one, nor even a very big one (no longer than 3 ft or so) - come close, but never quite been bit by one.
I don't like being stung, but it's not any more annoying than watching Seinfeld. My youngest got attacked by some hornets at our house. I was mowing the lawn in the back and my oldest came running around the house screaming and absolutely terrified that "something's wrong with Anna!" I went around and it took me a few seconds to figure it out. I grabbed her up and took her in the house. "It's still in my hair!" she screamed. And I grabbed a lock and squeeze the little thing to death in my fist. I found their nest on the side of the house (apparently the sound of the mower had agitated them). Bought some poison and sprayed them that night as they slept (or whatever it is they do).
I must have missed a few. A few days later, they had reestablished in a small bush right next to my front door. I drenched the bush and that was the end of them. It was also the end of the bush - it died a few weeks later. And now, years later, the grass is only just beginning to grow on the spot.
I'm terrified by all manner of arachnid and numerous other crawling things. Wasps, though, just don't scare me personally. But I'll tell ya, when I heard my kid screaming like that it's got to have been one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. And we were dealing with a pretty small nest, no bigger than cantaloupe, say. No idea how many hornets it had it contained. Probably no more than 30 or 40 (wild guess), but when they were dive bombing it seemed a lot more.
Don't want to think about a really huge nest, but I can sympathize with just about anything somebody would do to get rid of such a horde of the surly, little devils, from the latest chemical poison to napalm.
I do wonder, though. I *thought* I read one time that honeybees were imported to the U.S. by early colonists. Is it true? (My memory's terrible and sometimes I unintentionally confabulate to fill in gaps on what I think I thought I read.) Regardless, is it true of NZ?
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Re: Snakes only hurt a little (been bit hundreds of times in a single day),
i am nosy! what kind of research do you do that you have been biten hundred of time in single day by snakes? do you do medical research? or work in a zoo (and yes, i know the bronx zoological society is working hard to not use zoo for animal research facilities.)
i suppose in theory i have some snakes about. my part of NYC is small town-ish (very different from suburban) and we have a large, "undeveloped" natural wetland park very close. so i regularly see, racoons and possums, and turtles, and all manner of birds, (and some rats) and i have even a local vixen and her kits(but not often!) but i have never seen a wild snake any where in NYC. does Virginia have that many?
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I think my hubby right near died of fear two years ago while walking in the woods with me. I saw a garter snake and I wanted to pick it up to show it to him (he's city folk.)
I wasn't quick enough so I got it round the middle. Well the little bugger turned around and bit me. It doesn't really hurt and it's more surprising than anything. My hubby though, was in a fright, he was insisting on slicing my finger open and sucking out the venom. It took heavy duty convincing to make him understand that garter snakes are *not poisonous. He watched me all weekend.
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This particular research program is known as "growing up a redneck." One day in particular, I was walking up this creek in Taylorsville, KY. 'They' called it a river, but it looked a bit puny to deserve such a title. They had damned up the river to form a new lake. We were walking straight up the middle of the creek and snatching water snakes and I think it was garters out of the water. The garters (or whatever they were) didn't bite and were just trying to get away, but the water snakes were ferocious (not that I blamed them). They'd latch on and try to rip - repeatedly. My buddies and I had fistfulls of the squiggly boogers and they were not happy at being manhandled. Most were about 2 - 2.5 feet long. For days later, we each had little brown-red, scabby marks all over our arms. Hundreds of 'em.
One of my buddies was a herpetologist, otherwise we would have been more careful. We let 'em go at the end - all except one garter I kept for a few years. I called him sneaky and fed him worms. He was fat and happy when I let him go. He was pretty small at first. I don't recall, maybe 8 or 9 inches. When he would eat a worm, he'd roll over on his side like he needed an alka-selzer.
On this particular trip, I was already in college. But we have been creek walkers nearly as far back as I can remember. Usually, we would just go for crawdads or fish or what have you. Sometimes we'd try to make damns in the creek ourselves, or build a fort inside a briar patch, or any number of other stupid and sometimes dangerous activities. Sometimes it was just to see who could pee the farthest. There are a lot of ways to keep yourself amused in the woods.
One time in Alaska, my brother found a human foot in the woods, which I promptly wrapped up and took in to school for a teacher to look at. He called the MPs and the CID showed up and wanted to know where I got it. I wasn't that familiar with the particular area and I refused to tell them at first, because I thought their heavy-handed ways might scare the crap out of my little brother. I told 'em eventually after they toned it down a little and he took 'em out to where he found it. No idea how it turned out.
Ah, yeah ... research. I guess that's as good a name as any for it. I should have thought to get an NSF grant.
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I just remembered that the innocuous snakes were not garters, but queens.
(Except the one that I kept which really was a garter snake.)
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Hey! I've been to Taylorsville Lake! Good fishing. One time my then-next door neighbor invited my hubby to go out in the small boat with him for some night fishing. Well, there was a great amount of beer, and no fish, and my husband is one of those lucky ducks who can fall asleep anywhere. Our tipsy neighbor did something he shouldn't have in that tipsy boat, and my husband woke up underwater. No damage, just the loss of some equipment including the cooler. You picked up a human foot??? Ew-ww-ww-ww...! And yes, mercy, you have to show law enforcement where such things are--preferably without disturbing it (I know you were young at the time, Sweetie).
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Hey! I've been to Taylorsville Lake!
It's a fine place for fishing, or at least it used to be. No idea what it's like now. On the great snake adventure, there were three of us: Steve "Snake" S., Shawn R., and myself. We were a pretty strange lot, I guess. Shawn was maybe the weirdest, a tall, lanky, very strange fellow. His dad was Jesse Stuart's biographer (and editor for at least one volume of JS's short stories, I think). Shawn was a really strange guy with an uncanny sense of direction and judgement for distance. He took pictures of the lake all through the process of them tearing down the towns, though the building of the dam, and flooding. He later made a slide show and then a video he called "Death of a Valley, Birth of a Lake" or something like that, which he set to Vangelis music. It seems a pretty emotional piece to me, but I was out with him when he took some of those pictures.
As for the foot, I'm pretty sure I was in eighth grade when J found it. Probably about 14. No excuse for bringing it in, really, except I wasn't thinking clearly. There was only a little bit of meat and tendon left on it.
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When my Daddy was courting my Mama, he needed a lot Hi, WO'N of gas money. Seems he had a client that paid him good money for snakes. Well, they did meet at the Oddfellows Club. My Mama always said he was an odd fellow, indeed!
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People will still pay for snakes. They make great pets. Easy to care for, for the most part. Not sure how true that is for the tropical buggers. I'm not too thrilled about the really big ones, but anything nonpoisonous under 5 or 6 feet is okay.
It's amazing, isn't it, that some people we think are initially so odd can turn out to be so important to us?
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My hubby though, was in a fright, he was insisting on slicing my finger open and sucking out the venom. It took heavy duty convincing to make him understand that garter snakes are *not poisonous. He watched me all weekend.
ROTF, Bel. My god - on what planet was your husband born?
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on what planet was your husband born?
Lots of people don't know one kind of snake from another. I can only recognize a very few. From having spent so much times in the woods, I should know a lot more than I do, except that I had such a bad attitude about the whole thing. But especially at a distance, I often can't discern species when my dad and brothers can tell easily.
Seems kinda odd that a garter snake would even bite. I've only seen one do that once before - when it was seriously hurt. I can imagine, though, that they might get testy when they're shedding, at which time it might be slightly more difficult to tell what it is.
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Depends on the type of garter snake, FF. Eastern garters - the most common species around Michigan - can be variably (depending on the individual snake) tempermental and one very well could be bitten handling them. Northern ribbon snakes are similiarly variable in temper but rarely bite. Butler's garters are very gentle and rarely attempt to bite.
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Well, whaddaya know. That's pretty interesting. I've never seen it to happen, but now that I think of it, I've only tried to grab garters in a very narrow range. I'll keep that in mind for when my inner child's coup finally succeeds and I'm irresistably compelled to snatch a snake.
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Lots of people don't know one kind of snake from another.
I'm one of such. Tory or Whig, they all look and sound the same to me.
Democrat or Republican works for me!
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