Alicornutopia

Ezra wrote:Is that bee bees, wasp and hornet bees, or both?

Wasps especially. I guess hornets are probably also terrible, but as far as I know you don't tend to get them in the UK.

And I realise they probably do actually contribute something to the world... but I don't think figs are a good enough reason to not hate them. I also have no clue how bad gnats are; are they just like regular flies? They're annoying, and they'd be worse in greater quantity, so I guess non-fig (and presumably fig?) wasps have some use.

I still hate them.

Gnats bite. Very unpleasantly.

I don't like figs really, so I have no reason not to hate wasps. Wasps are assholes.

My deep and abiding hatred for an insect is for something I thought was a mosquito until just now when I googled it, at which point they turned out to be a kind of biting midge. They are the Ceratopogonidae, apparently, colloquially known as no-see-ums in my bit of the world. They are tiny little bloodsuckers that are small enough to fly through regular-size mosquito screening. They are awful.

By gnats I also meant midges, which are similar but rather than biting are tiny and form large motion-seeking clouds at human height seemingly for the express purpose of annoying, choking, and causing claustrophobic panic attacks in passers-by. They are found in the American east, and probably other places, and are a waking nightmare. I am willing to tolerate wasps in exchange for fewer of the little bastards.

Awww. I am very sad at apocrita hate. Bees and wasps are some of my favorite animals, particularly the ichneumon wasps. Definitely creepy, but they come in so many pretty colors.

I'll agree that yellowjackets are jerks, though. Probably all of the two dozen or so stings I'd gotten as a child had been yellowjackets.

Same. Never been stung by a wasp that wasn't a yellowjacket.

I did not expect to spark such an interesting conversation.

In any case the BEEEEES in question were in fact yellowjackets.

...Yellowjackets are not bees. Bees produce delicious honey. Yellowjackets produce pain.

Which may or may not be delicious.