The wasps have been behaving strangely this year, perhaps due to our wild temperature swings? When it hit over 100, they surrounded our doors and windows, trying to cool themselves on the glass or from what little air might be leaking out from cracks.
Yesterday, we went next door to celebrate my mother-in-law's birthday. Later, I walked back home to get some yummy frozen soft pretzels and spicy cheese for snacks. When I approached the garage door keypad, a guardian wasp flew over and sat on my forearm, wings spread as they do when giving a warning.
This is odd, I'm thinking. Red wasps are aggressive but we really have no problem with them, in fact, I think sometimes they like us since I make sure to give them drinks on the hot days. They love to sit on the hostas as I dampen their leaves or fly through the sprinklers on hot days.
Well, he (she?) didn't actually DO anything, just sat there until I shook it off. Then I looked up and saw about 50-80 of them plastered to the glass around the light, huddling for warmth. The temperature has dropped from 104 last week down to the 60s yesterday. I carefully punched in the code and made my way into the garage and through the house, grabbed the pretzels and cheese and off I went, punching in the code to close the door.
Oops! Forgot the pretzel salt. I have to do this again, but all was well. So . . . this time I grabbed the opener from the car, just in case.
Today, after church, they are still here but waking up and starting to fly off. I should have taken the photo yesterday but I wasn't really thinking that clearly with so many wasps staring me down! Strange wasp behavior indeed!
2 comments:
There was a science article 5 or 10 years ago talking about how they thought some types of wasps were more or less hypnotizing some types of spiders to cause them to build webs in a particular places or ways that would catch a kind of bug for them. It sounded like a Twilight Zone story.
Say, how do you know Trudy Graves? I have a friend (Ann Ahnemann) in New Jersey from days gone by who also has her as a Facebook friend. This must be like six degrees of Kevin Bacon. Maybe we should start of game called six degrees of Trudy and see how far we get.
Trudy has a blog, Lay Speaking Chick that I saw, probably connected to the Homestead Revival Preparedness Challenge or one of the other blog hops. As it turns out, she lives in the town next to us, Union, MO. We often shop there and our farm supply store is there. I have not met her, as some bloggers may not want to actually meet, but I follow her on blogger. Small world.
http://layspeakingchick.blogspot.com/
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