My wasps are sick...

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Well, like any animal, they're not really mine... I use mine in the mode of, my sister, or my son.

There is a small nest of yellow jackets just outside of my back door. It is under the corner of an overhang, at just the right height so that I can stand underneath it and look right into the cells of the nest from about a foot away. I watched the mother wasp build the nest, and was happy to see her babies in their cells growing fat and squirming around. I've been waiting for them to go into the pupal stage, when the mother wasp will typically seal the end of the cell while the baby grows into an adult wasp. Then it will chew its way out of the cell. But, something has gone wrong... It's been two long, and none of the babies have gone into the pupal stage; but some of them have this ominous looking white fuzz on them; I'd swear it's some sort of fungus. I keep watching the nest, hoping that they are really OK, and some of the babies will mature into adult wasps. But they do not seem to be doing so; there should have been at least a half-dozen adults by now, I think.

I just went and checked on them, and the solitary mother wasp was just sitting on the outside of the nest. Usually she gives me an ominous glare when she is there and I come up and start peeking at her babies. But just now, she just sat there, not moving; I think she knows something is wrong; she looked so... sad. And I could see none of the babies moving; I fear they're all sick, or possibly dead.

I wish their was some way I could help them. I feel so powerless to help, and it's really gotten me down.

Most people would not even notice the nest, or more likely knock it down. Is there anyone else here who would worry about wasps? It's a small thing, but I just wanted to share it with someone. Thanks for listening.

Good fortune,

- Icarus

I know how you feel.
I would even stun flies and drop them into 'my' spider's web, and they were pounced on, but as the days went on, she wouldn't even stir if I gently breathed on the web. One day she just drifted down from the web and was a dried out husk of a spider.

part of that whole 'circle of life' thing with out the circle.

Merle

wasps are nice,they are only trying to do what every other living thing is trying to do/live.
not nice to hit them and make them all gooey,just for flying around in front of person.
it is nice how they like to protect each other to.

It's only a 10 min drive to my work.At least once during the drive I see animals killed on the road.It is like a punch in the stomach.A flash of their panic and pain of being hit floates through me and I see the alternative...the cute fuzzy critter romping in tall grass,playing with their children,sunning themselves,catching a smell of food in the breeze.This all happens in seconds and every time I drive by and see their bodies...it is the same.It hurts me and I feel a loss.

When I was in grade school I would often spend my time at the pool finding insects in the water and scooping them out and lieing them on the side of the pool to dry out.Most of them didnt make it,I imagine the chlorine was like acid to them.One time I did try and intervene when I saw an insect in destress.It was an insect that I "thought" had gotten stuck in a tree.It's "tail" was in the wood and it wasn't moving.(I was about 8 or 9.)I tried to use a twig to help pull it out and free it.I believe I killed it.I learned later that it was just laying eggs.My intervention proved fatal and it gave me a bad feeling about trying to "play God".I am much more careful in my interventions,now.

The world is sick.We are losing species every day.We are in a coal mine and these animals are our canary,the canary is not feeling to well.If more people could feel the empathy you felt for the wasp and her family and ask," why are they sick?" we might begin understanding how the coal mine is becoming dangerious and figure out how to vent it to get healier air for our kids and the wasps.

I thought I was strange for being this way too but I guess not. I too have a little pet spider that lives in my window. It is a very pretty and small white spider. Overall I don't mind spiders even in my house as long as they are solitary jumping type spiders or have their web in a place that isn't visible, and as long as there isn't too many of them. I would rather have a few spiders instead of the nasty bugs they eat. Most wasps and yellow jackets on the other hand I kill on sight, I have had too many bad experiences with them growing up, yellow jackets in particular. I will tolerate mud daubers because they are very docile, the problem is they almost exclusively kill spiders...

Poor pet wasps.

Have you tried taking them to a vet?

jeeze, i wish i could feel the empathy u do for your whasps, its nice to see ppl caring about others, dont nessissarily have to be ppl, unfortunatly here i must kill them, im highly allergic, last year, i let the whasps invade my proporty, i did not wanna kill them cause they did not harm me, but 1 day i got stung, that was a decliration of war, now i exterminate any i see anywhere around my house, i dont bother the ones in the trees or anywhere else tho, i just need to be safe in my house. I shoulda nipped the problem in the bud lastyear, kill 1 or 2, no sting, no more problem for a year, instead i had many more to contend with, i needed medication of hospitilization if it was not here, and i cant have that unforetunatky.

I am sorry for your wasps... i feel the same way about animals on the road. I also used to spend time in the pool rescuing bugs and frogs. I still stop my car and pick turtles off the road, so no one will run over one of them. Do people just not see these animals? I think a lot of people do it for spite. That, i really dont understand. I have seen some stupid redneck deliberately swerve to run over a box turtle before i could get to it. Someone dumped kittens off on a highway once and i couldnt get to them... I cried for hours hysterically. what the hell is wrong with people? I hope that its just a long gestation period for those babies. You probably know more about their lifecycles than i do.

I cannot kill anything, it makes me sick! One time I saw my mom stomping on a bunch of earwigs she'd scared out of their hiding place in the back yard. That night I dreamed she was stomping on puppies...

We have a tiny pond that we made a huge pile of rocks in so that the wasps and other sting-y things could come and get water without drowning. I used to have to rescue them all the time.

I, too, have fed moths to "my" spiders. I felt badly for the moths, though. My mom and I would put a spider every year in a little terrarium in the garage for the winter. She'd make egg sacks etc., and later die. Then in the spring we'd uncover the terrarium and put it outside and watch the itty bitty baby spiders hatch and blow away.

One time while driving I saw some dumbass in the oncoming lane swerve to hit a squirrel, which he missed, fortunately. As he got closer to me I swereved into his lane a little bit to give him a scare. (Maybe I shouldn't have shared that? ) I hate people who can't respect all life.

I'm sorry your wasps are not well, Icarus Falling!

In college I used to watch roadkill swell up an burst because the highway janitors, prisoners or who ever wasn't doing thier job.
As a boy I once found a dead bird in the middle of the street .It surprised me becuse birds belonged in the air. I diddn't like the idea of natures animal dead on mans' pavement. so I put him off in the bushes.
So anyway in college when roadkill season started again I started carriing an old army shovel and some leather gloves in the trunk of my car. I was sick of looking at thecarcasses everyday. But it grew. Eventually I had my own little ritual. I would always put a bud of somesort in with the animal to represent rebirth. Then I would cover them in leaves or sticks so the dirt did not strike them in the face.
Once I buried abeautiful fox, with the softest fur. Another time an owl of all things.
Actually I buried the owl while on my way to a play. Yes I had already picked up my date and the worst thing was it was the second animal I had stopped for. But whats a dirty pair of gloves and a rusty shovel in the trunk between young lovers?( Of course it was only our second date, YES there was athird.)

This morning I discovered a wasp nest on my clothes closet. I knocked it down and now feel horrible about it. The wasp was an enormeous insect and I was scared.

I wish you and your wasps well, Icarus. I almost cried when I read the title of the thread even before reading the thread, and felt bad about not replying sooner.


And TrueDave, I'm happy for you if your girlfriend saw you as a caring person who HAD to bury the animals. I always find that I can't bury something until days later, in case it's still alive. I have this fear of confined spaces brought on my my severe depression.

I have always been fascinated with insects like that, they are simple creatures yet so incredibly complex at the same time.

I feel horrible if I accidently kill or hurt something. Just last weekend I accidently ran over a chipmunk on my mountain bike that ran out of the bushes. It ended up dying and there was nothing I could do, it ruined my whole ride.