It seems like I have always had some kind of connection with flying-stinging insects like wasp, yet I wouldn't say those connections are positive. When I was about four I remember going to a parks and recs activity at our local park. It was my first time at parks and recs so I remember feeling awkward but I was given a place and set on a task and I think I was enjoying myself when I noticed a flying bug in the air. I should point out that at this moment in time I had no idea what a wasp was or that they would sting; and being somewhat of a day dreamer I found myself following the wasp around with my eyes as it buzzed around. I didn't panic or anything when it landed on my nose and I remember the wasp looking right at me as I looked at it; naively I thought I had made a new friend from the insect world. As I yelled out and started crying from the pain of being stung while wiggling to get out of the confined space between the other kids on either side of me on the long bench I realized that bug was not nice and was not my friend. I dare say that what was going on there was the wasp was introducing me to the feud I was now part of between insect and man.
I have had other encounters with wasp since then some unprovoked and then some that I definitely provoked, yet wasp are not the only flying-stinging insect I've had problems with. I have been stung about four times from average everyday honey bees, yet only in and while operating in some way a Wireline Truck. This is not to say I have never had close contact with bees, and in fact I have been surrounded by hives of bees without being stung.
Carpenter Bee's have been causing me problems lately. Carpenter bees are usually misidentified as Bumble Bee's, yet Carpenter bees are not fuzzy and most often if not always black with a shinny abdomen. With where I live I have to walk down a restrictive path by a section of fence where there is a nest of female Carpenters bees. When we first moved in we didn't even notice there were bees nested there but lately the F-ing things have been buzzing me when I walk past, but they don't mess with Sam. I have been buzzed by other Carpenter bees miles from home, and oddly enough one followed us in our car and almost seemed to be hiding buzzing around the phone lines while we were stopped at signals. The F-ers have even been flying around a buzzing our windows, and even when the opaque windows are shut their tiny black silhouette become larger and larger until they are about life size as they test the screening; Sam says "they just want to play with you because you smell so sweet". I do not smell sweet as far as I know, and if I did I think I would go see my doctor about diabietes. This has become an irritant that I'm not willing to tollerate anymore. I have been looking for ways to kill these horrible nucences. So far what I have read is that the hippies don't want you to kill them because the are great polenators, and many others suggest waiting until night and filling the holes with insecticide then plugging the holes with steel-wool. My problem has been that they fly into an area of the fence that is covered by ivy and other drapping plants so I have no idea where their burrow would be. What I have been left with is to bait a trap for the flying giant black jelly beans with a milk jugg containing a vinegar, sugar, and water mixture that is hanging from my awning. The idea of the trap is the bee will enter to feed and not know how to get out again and drown but I don't think it is going to work. So far the trap has been up for a hour and I haven't seen any go in it, and the one F-er I heard didn't go near it. If all else fails I'm going to be the weird-neihbor-guy who carries his tennis racket around and swings it wildly any time he hears a F-ing bee with a crazy "Hiyah, you bee-youch bitches" then mudder off something incohearent as I continue on my way.
