I don’t mind honeybees or bumblebees at all…they don’t bother me as long as I don’t bother them, and we’re both happier that way. I’m not as nervous as I used to be with carpenter bees, but every now and then one will still catch me off-guard when they are in their aggressive, territorial stage and they fly right up into your face. But when it comes to yellowjackets, there is no amount of “nice and calm” that is going to work. If it’s yellow and black, has a butt dagger and can fly, go ahead and play the appropriate theme song. You can deal with the angry little bastards…I’ll be three counties away on speakerphone as I listen to the nightmare you’re enduring if you’re dumb enough to mess with the nest.

Speaking of messing with the nest, I’ve got a question for you: how do you make a late 1990s Chevy Malibu even more undesirable than they already are? How about a multi-generational nest of Vespula squamosa, or Southern Yellowjacket, filling the car up to the dashboard, from front to back inside? This is a multi-year buildup that contains tens of thousands of workers that can sting multiple times while emitting an alarm pheromone that is also venomous. And besides the natural worry of stinging, they bite and they swarm. Satan’s houseflies, if there was ever an appropriate example. This is nightmare fuel, pure and simple, and we don’t know what would work better: burning the car or sinking it off the Gulf of Mexico. Either way, the only positive spin on these images is that I’m far enough away from the swamps of Louisana and hundreds of miles away from this pestilence.