Cheers to @AdventureswithAmbrose for the excellent honeybee footage! Feel check out his channel if you're interested in bugs and other Aussie wildlife!
As a former beekeeper, I can state with authority and certainty that honeybees (as in "European" but originally from Africa) are only important pollinators for European and other Old World plants. They don't do much for any of the New World plants which nowadays feed most of the world (corn/maize, tomatoes, potatoes, etc.) and can actually be considered as pests to corn (maize) and other wind-pollinated plants. New World crops evolved to be pollinated by other, New World bugs, birds, bats, whatever, or the wind, long before the White Man brought his honeybees from the Old World. What the honeybees uniquely do, however, is produce industrial quantities of honey for human consumption. Which is a luxury item, not a necessity of human life. That said, for the last couple of decades, honeybees in the New World have been having a hard time. They've had plagues of parasites either getting worse or newly appearing on several fronts, plus "Africanization" from some escapees down in Brazil making them more aggressive and less honey-productive. Back when I started beekeeping, I only had 2 or 3 hives and just for the honey, and they lasted a long time. By the time I quit, I had up to 15 hives and most of them died out every year from the various plagues despite my best efforts. And those that survived only did so because they became "Africanized", meaning they'd interbred with wild/feral "African killer bees" when requeening, so they got meaner and less honey-productive over time. But these hives kept on surviving when others did not, so I didn't requeen them myself. I tried all sorts of non-African bees, too. Russian, English, German, whatever. The results were always the same. Those that survived did so on their own by becoming Africanized and aggressive, and less into making honey. There was a time, say 20 years ago, when I could open up one of my hives without smoking it, pull out a brood frame covered with bees, and all this while wearing only shorts and sandals. And I could show this frame to a potential customer who also wasn't wearing any protective gear, and neither of us would ever be stung. Not so about 5 years later or ever since.
@TheBullethead The main reason for the overwhelming importance of Western Honeybees in European agriculture and ecosystems is the degradation and loss of nearly all original wild ecosystems that once existed in prehistorical Europe. Most of Western Europe was originally covered by deciduous or coniferous climax forests that were destroyed centuries ago. A key reason why so many European 'wild' plants and animals are so invasive in the New Wotld and Australia is that they evolved to synanthropy centuries ago in response to original habitable loss or change, and only Human persecution limited their success as synanthropes. More Apis species occur in Asia than anywhere else. A. mellifera underwent very rapid evolution in both Africa and in Europe, but that does not confirm that the ancestral A. mellifera originated in Africa. Biologists are still trying to determine via genetic analysis where African and Western Honeybees first evolved.
I had an apple tree that was continually being defoliated by caterpillars every year. One year, wasps set up a nest on my Apple tree, and after that, the tree flourished. Wasps saved my apple tree, and I am eternally grateful for that.
Alas, unless you live in Europe, your Apple tree is an 'invasive' from Western and Central Europe, while those caterpillars were likely native Lepidoptera. Those wasps were also probably non native invasive European Paper Wasps or German Yellowjackets.
@@motherlandbot6837 We have plenty of native paper wasps that feed on caterpillars, I really doubt that if the wasps were invasive then the caterpillars were native, either both were native or it was an invasive caterpillar with native / invasive wasp
@@motherlandbot6837 You seem to be confused about what “invasive” means, as opposed to non native. Invasive entails more than just being in a none native location.
@@motherlandbot6837 And as I said in the video, I'm not denying that invasive wasps are a thing. The difference is, no one is being misled into thinking invasive wasps are "endangered" and in need of "saving". People are perfectly willing to accept invasive wasps as invasive, yet can't comprehend the same can apply for honeybees.
@@motherlandbot6837 While the wasps may be invasive, the apple tree is not. It is non-native in Europe as well, originally from Central Asia, but afaik it relies on human assistance to thrive and has not become invasive anywhere.
when i was little i got stung by a wasp on the shoulder and lip after walking out of a store, maybe over an ice cream cone or something, i dont know. but if i can move past my dislike for them and learn to appreciate them, anyone can.
My son got stung by a yellowjacket on his first day of kindergarten. They were learning how to stand silently in line. The teacher asked my boy why he was crying. He showed her the swelling and she asked why he hadn’t said something. “You said we had to be silent.” My stoic lad!
Repeated backcrosses to semidomestic European and European derived strains of Western Honeybees has both mellowed Africanized hybrid Honeybees and reduced their tendency to swarm frequently.
@theangrysuchomimus5163 I haven't read or heard anything about "African Killer (Honey)bees" in our 'news media' for years. First, those 'Killer Bees' in the US, Central, and South American were hybrids between East African Lowland Apis mellifera scutellata (which is one of 11 currently recognized subspecies of African A. mellifera, and the only African subspecies currently important in apiculture), and domesticated European A. mellifera (between 5 and 11 subspecies of ancestral European Honeybees are recognized; the Italian A. m. ligustica, and the Carniolan Honeybee (A. m. carnica) of Central Europe, are the most important among the extensively hybridized stocks of Western Honeybees in hobby and commercial apiculture worldwide. Italians are the pretty tawny yellowish workers (queens have a bright orange abdomen) that most non apiculturists in the lower 48 US states think of as Honeybees; Carniolans are much darker and of mellower temperament, Carniolan queens differ much less in appearance from their workers. All A. mellifera colonies, wild, feral, or domestic, periodically replace their queens if the colony lives long enough. This process is known as supersedure, and may involve the old queen leave with a group of workers as a swarm, the age related death of the old queen as her workers raise some female larvae to become the future queen, or the active killing of the old queen by either her own workers in a 'love ball', or in fights with the new queens as they emerge from their queen cells. Any new queens produced via supersedure must after a few days go on one or more mating flights, during which they receive and store a lifetime's supply of sperm from drones (who fatally rupture themselves as they mate!) from any nearby colonies, including her own. What this all means is that because of the diverse European ancestry of domestic and feral Western Honeybees, any New World (East African × Western) Honeybee colonies will inevitably backcross to Western Honeybees and lose their African characteristics by genetic drift. Ironically, Italian Honeybee colonies tend to become more aggressive over time via supersedure hybridization with other Western Honeybees! East African Lowland Honeybees are specifically adapted to savannah habitats. They were intentionally hybridized with Western Honeybees to produce commercial Honeybee strains that were harder working and more productive in subtropical and tropical grassland habitats resembling African savannahs and grasslands, but which were less likely to swarm and be hyperaggressive in colony defense than A. m. scutellata. Large commercial operations in Brazil and elsewhere effectively used these early generation in their agricultural land as they used extra protective equipment for their farm workers to deal with the aggressiveness of these bees. Oh, to debunk another Western Honeybee myth; queens do not invariably kill each other until only one is alive. Two queens sometimes coexist amicably; this most often happens when an older queen tolerates her surviving queen daughter and vice versa.
@@theangrysuchomimus5163 youre not the general public. neither is the science community that obviously know the diffrence between invasive honey bees and bumble bees (thanks to hank green). the general public only cares about hating wasps and saving all bees.
18:18 very true, argued with someone about how honey bees spread a virus that deforms the wings of bumblebees and they were still arguing that they were better than wasps
every time I see a "honeybees are so precious and wasps are pure evil" thing I want to vomit. This video perfectly sums up everything I say about wasps and I'm so grateful that you made it.
Thanks! It had kinda been rubbing me the wrong way for a while. Heck, that attitude is probably the very reason I went from being uninterested in wasps to liking them.
Great video again, Jackson. I love your Shakespearianesque quote at the end, very apt. I have a few tiny native wasp nests hanging outside my front door, which I lovingly greet every day.
Came faster than an idiot throwing a stone into a hornets nest and subsequently dies my fascination with them began simply by asking: what do they do? Began my passion for these remarkable, misunderstood creatures.
Same with me. I had a nest right near my room on second floor of our summer house (old and barely standing house btw). I was careful and they never bit me. However their nest happened to be right above our heating place on the first floor, so later they died or left because of heat
Psychologically invasive species is a phrase that I I a going to use from now onwards. Bees, birds, placental mammals, teleosts, cephalopods, jumping spiders and a few others have a disproportionate effect on pop culture and even funnel attention and funding for research away from other taxa. In my country, honeybees are native. Still, there are many more species that most people don’t know them. I haven’t noticed the extreme wasp hatred that exists in American social media for example. There are people who think that they are extremely dangerous and that they serve no purpose, but it hasn’t reached the level of widespread memes. People who think that honeybees are special or the lifeline of the planet do exist though. Generally many people dislike both insects if they encroach on human spaces. Wasps may congregate around food outdoors, but bees block approach and freshwater everywhere in the summer. Still, many people know that bees won’t attack you if you aren’t threatening them, and I have found even some beekeepers who don’t want to exterminate all wasps. Probably because fig production is imporntant in Greece, the fig wasp is acknowledged and even has its own special traditional name. I hope that you are going to make more videos about misunderstood species, such as reptiles, amphibians, a few mammals etc. You have a unique way of presentation that shakes people out of their comfort zone and this is a good thing. Make a pause on the goners, because the extant species need you as well.
By "have a disproportionate effect on pop culture" you don't mean necessarily positive right? Cuz I can assure you a lot of mammals, birds, fish and spiders (not sure why jumping spiders specifically) don't have good reputations. It's also weird to mention teleost fish specifically, when chondrichthyes has a similar impact on pop culture. Most ocean-related media will at least have one mention of sharks and uncommonly rays. However considering the massive diversity of ray-fined fish, it shouldn't be surprising that they are very popular. And non-avian reptiles too have had an impact on human culture. More often than not it's expressed by a deep fear of snakes.
@ by my comment I thought that everyone understood that I meant about positive effect on pop culture only. So no fear of snakes or sharks counts. May be a few ray species are treated like teleosts. Jumping spiders are now everywhere, especially in American online media.
The unjust hate for wasps is quite real. Some will even take footage of people in biotech suites harvesting v. Mandarinia nests from hornet farms in places like Vietnam, and describe it as some sort of vicious murder hornet or "John wick " hornet attack. Things like this are a common thing on ig and TH-cam, and more are being ai generated. It sounds silly, but as someone who's fascinated by social vespids, I unfortunately happened to get recommended a lot of anti wasp propaganda crap
Spotted Lanternfly infestation in my area (Finger Lakes Region/lots of wineries, lots of grape crops being ruined) Dryinidae wasps would help clear up that problem
It's a shame that they go so under-appreciated. People just assume wasps = invasive/pest and bees = good/helpful regardless of which ones are native and which ones aren't.
Did you and Ze Frank coordinate a time for videos on wasps? If so, good to see some of my fave channels being buddies like that. If not, then it must be the wasp god hinting at how actually wasps are cool and serve a purpose in nature and often help humans out. Thank you Wasp God, your wisdom and multifaceted and virtuous presence.
I once got stung by almost three wasps on my freaking face(eyes were saved thanks to overly large nerd glasses) still I don't understand the unprecedented hate the group gets without any hard and logical reasoning. seriously some people out there want to absolutely annihilate all types of wasps completely!
Great video, though I would suspect that hating on wasps is typically based on a very limited knowledge of a few more aggressive, colony-building kinds
Dunno why I got this recommended late but great vid and glad it finally came out! Also “cladistics, bitches!” is a great catchphrase idk what you’re talking about. I just love hymenopterans and the only wasps I actually hate are those invasive German yellow jackets that ruin being outside. Also some comments here calling this video propaganda or false because invasive wasps exist or that apis is super agriculturally important confuse me. That’ not the point of the video??
The responses have been..odd...but at the same time, all too predictable. There are plenty of unpopular animals out there, but few bring out a level of irrationality and denialism quite like wasps.
Nothing is that simple. NA programs to substitute Bombus impatens and Nomia melanderi for Western Honeybees have led to pathogen and parasite epizootics among these two species that have spread to wild NA bees. The wild European Bombus terrestris is now displacing wild bees in Japan.
Frustratingly, when I brought up the issue with too many honeybees being an issue for wild bee populations and we really should protect the other bees instead of the completely safe Apis mellifera, I was greeted with the statement that that's "too complicated for the voters" and we should stick with the line being about "the bees everyone knows". Nevermind that actively harms wild bee populations by making honeybees even more pampered and giving them even more of an edge.
Assuming the general populace is too dumb to comprehend anything different is a seriously silly defence for perpetuating falsehoods. But yeah, not the first time I've heard that justification.
Anyone who hates wasps has never had to deal with caterpillars. I was trying to raise collard greens and cabbage moths, with their green caterpillars, were tearing them to shreds. Day old leaves looked like lace and I would pick half a solo cup of them off every couple days. And while I was sweating trying to get rid of them, there’d be 30 some odd hornets and mud daubers grabbing them as well. I was out there one time when one landed on my arm. Looking at it, the reason it had landed was obvious, it had 3 caterpillars in tow and was struggling to gain altitude. I waited a bit while they adjusted their insect baggage before they took off again. I’ve also watched them tear into a bag worm nest to destroy it. It was a coordinated effort on their part and some bag worms would fall to escape. I found the wasps would readily come and take away any bag worms offered to them so I ended up hand feeding them several times. In any hatred against wasps I’ve never heard mud daubers slandered except for their nests. Chalk it up to their timid nature as well as the ridiculous numbers of spiders they cull and store in the mud. The scariest wasp IMO is also one of the least aggressive. Tarantula Hawks make bees look vicious given how chill they are. I’ve spent a good 5 minutes hanging out with one and turning rocks over for it.
Non native and very invasive Pieris rapae caterpillars that exploit you monocultue of non native and domesticated but still slightly invasive Brassica are but ONE species of many thousands of caterpillar species, which include most that don't affect Human interests at all, and other saturniid, sphingicampid, and butterfly species that many of us welcome
As a tree worker in TX, I encounter wasps on almost a daily basis. I give them their space, and treat them with respect. In 5 years, I have never been stung, even with 20 or 30 of them buzzing around my face after cutting down their home unknowingly. I still carry wasp spray, but I haven't used it in years. Some of my coworkers get stung routinely, always while swinging and spraying at them.😂
I dislike wasps and bees only under certain conditions. When they're building nests near my front door, I want them to please do that somewhere else. Otherwise, I'm happy to watch them do what they do. They're lovely creatures. But most importantly, thank you for pointing out that the majority of people are worried about the wrong bees. The domestic honeybee is fine. It has humans working to keep it alive. The endangered bees aren't living in human-managed hives.
@Shadowbannedandcensored they don't need saving right now. There's population is stable if not increasing and in some places where they are introduced they are actually negative effect on native endangered species. Just watch the video and see why
@itsmeblank4028 Such an absolutist position. I'm a retired biologist who has seen firsthand how Western Honeybees displace native NA bees. At the same time, Western Honeybees are essential to US agriculture, and without them we would have few and extremely costly insect pollinated crops. As much as I dislike industrial agriculture (I'm a small scale hobby grower), this would leave consumers around much of the world reliant on produce from agricultural operations that promote Western Honeybees, because they remain the most cost effective pollinators for most insects pollinated crops. I keep colonies of Osmia lignaria as alternative native pollinators for my fruit trees, and these ultraspecialist solitary bees are even more vulnerable to pathogens than Western Honeybees, because they are solitary and don't naturally occur at densities aoproximating those WITHIN Western Honeybee colonies. They are also plagued with parasitoid WASPS that are not a problem with Western Honeybees.
@@motherlandbot6837 how is it absoulist by saving that having honey bees as the poster child for endangered bees is misleading? I did not say they were not important rather it is disingenuous to treat it as though in 5 years they will go extinct when other species of bees are in those exact position, just as important to certain crops in some cases more so such as bumblebees who as reported Environment America back in 2022 has seen a 90% reduction in population.
@@itsmeblank4028Are you familiar with the problems involved in using bumblebees as pollinators for plants that require sonification for pollination (Tomatoes, Sweet Peppers, Eggplants)? In Europe and Israel Bombus terrestris is raised for this purpose, while in the US and Canada, our native Bombus impatens is used. These are plagued by Nosema bombi, parasitic mites, viral diseases (some transmitted by Honeybees), and commercial bumblebee producers lock their customers into buying additional or replacement colonies from them, instead of producing their own. Australia has two native Amegilla bees that engage in sonification and are amenable to artificial rearing (they have banned bumblebee imports), but no such bees have been identified in the US and Canada. The multiple swarms of Western Honeybees that would settle on my home each summer have not occurred in over two decades, and every hobbyist and commercial beekeeper here is struggling with diseases and Varroa mites. If you seriously believe that we should just scrap Western Honeybee based apiculture in modern temperate agriculture, you are living in a fantasy world. That the Honeybee industry has been engaging in large scale 'greenwashing', like free range poultry producers, does not change this unpleasant reality.
I like wasps as long as they stay away from me, due to being Highly allergic to European Yellow Jacket stings. I still respect them (living in Germany) and the role they play. And I really love their beautiful faces.
Damned brilliant I completely agree, wasps are totally awesome!! (when not invasive) and I loved the quote at the end "If by chance I have offended.." I didn't realize it's actually originally from Shakespeare?! I'm sure I've heard it somewhere else too! Thanks for all of your spectacularly fine work!
I've had a longstanding friendship with the polistes metricus wasps in my yard, they'll eat honey from my hand and their foundresses have wintered inside with me before, they're very intelligent and wonderful creatures
Thanks! Honestly not expecting high numbers anyway - I had to take a long-ish break from uploading due to sickness and uni stress, which killed my channel’s momentum.
u have made me relook invertebrate creatures completely ever since i was drawn in by ur prehistoric planet video, HOWEVER! this is where i draw the line, wasps are terrifying (im ofc including bees when i say this) and while they are definitely interesting, they are too scary for me, if its small and it flies, u can be sure im running away from it. not hating at all tho, really great video and im happy to have learnt more about this amazing but horrific creatures. thanks again for another awesome "creepy crawlies" video
Nothing wrong with being scared of wasps. I'm sure if the Australian ones weren't so chill, I'd be a bit more apprehensive around them too. Definitely a group of insects that deserve a little respect.
I am Australian, yes. But growing up watching mostly British television has definitely affected the way I speak. I did apparently have a very strong Aussie accent as a kid.
Yo, can I buy Ixodiphagus starts? I have a debilitating frear of ticks (literally hurt my eye flinching at the image), and they are EVERYWHERE here in the southeast US. Btw, this is a joke. Idk anything about the wasp much less the native range. Great video! I personally love parasitoid wasps (i.e. most wasps) and am more than willing to...live and let live when it comes to the Vespids...
This video just about approaches perfection. A remarkable mix of information, facts, and moderate aggression. I might've enjoyed that last aspect more than I should. That the topic happens to be one I'm rather invested in myself certainly helps. One not strictly scientific, but nevertheless immensely enjoyable source that has on occasion covered the topic of bee... let's call it 'Overrepresentation', is Entomology Uncensored, a sadly discontinued Facebook/Twitter comic heavily focussing on wasps.
People just want reasons to validate their fears. Wasps are bold and look mean and they fly into people faces while at the park or pool. If your reaction is flailing and screaming like a ***** when that happens, you'll believe anything you need to believe to protect your ego up and including spreading the idea that that little animal is some sort of evil spawn of the plague-Earth that _should_ be feared and destroyed.
Typical slender wasps are awesome because they are main reason why my garden grow so nicely, as they pretty much only pollinators in my area, I have few nest of paper wasps on my home and... We live in perfect harmony, as I dont bother them, they dont bother me. You just need to remember to not wave your hand around them and breath straight to their nest. Its simple as that. And god damn some of wasps look awesome, just look at Podalonia genus or whole Sphecidae family. If you imagine "assassin" "bug" and "alien" you see that beauty.
I mean this in the most positive way, but listening to you're voice is like whiplash you sound like the most eloquent aristocrat for 80% of the video but every so often you just break down into stereotypical Ausie. very fun to listen to keep up the good vids!
Even if the Einstein quote was real and not just a line someone made up and appended with the name of the first widely-known smart person they could think of - why do his thoughts on the subject matter? He was a physicist, not an ecologist. Might as well as cite Pauling when discussing meteorology.
People prefer (honey) bees because they tend to be less agressive than (yellow jackets) wasps. It has nothing to do with wasps being useless. On the contrary, people believe both do the same job, so they want to keep the more docile animal, making the more aggressive wasp "useless". Obviously their beliefs are unfounded, but the reasoning is not the same. Furthermore, laypeople probably don't even know hornets eat bees. They're scared of them because they look like wasps, but bigger, so they lump them all the same. Or at least that was what people I came accross on social media would do. Also, honey bees are the only bees people care about because it's usually the only species they know of. Most people don't even know honey bees are invasive.
Doesn’t help that education of native bees is shit (at least where I live, you don’t learn about your native bee species in areas even when in the agricultural field)
I love native bees. They are so precious. Honey bees are cool but when a colony goes rogue it is devastating. Scary fucking plague that kills anything within it's vicinity wether you acknowledge their nest or not. Meanwhile the nobody knows about the emerald bee. Of all my states native bees, those little guys take my heart
I feel like the hatred for wasps stems from a fear of them, as they are, in comparison to their European bee counterparts, much more aggressive and bigger. However, most people forget the sheer diversity of the wasps, only really thinking of the eusocial wasps and hornets. If one looks at solitary wasps then, while they certainly are horrifying in their methods for parasotoidism, they are also incredibly diverse and truly fabulous. I have personally even suggested using a special wasp species that parasotoids on flour moth larvae, as an effective countermeasure to a flour moth problem at my fathers house, as we found other methods could never get rid of 100% of them. I still think not wanting a wasp nest near your house is completely justified and the fear of eusocial wasps and hornets is usually justified, however I agree that these animals are some of natures best population control and its a shame they are severely understudied.
Love native wasps and native bee's....a lot of people have the whole "I love bee's, save the bee's" logic but the problem is a lot of these bees' are introduced pests and not even native and they're not the bee's you should be saving at least not in our country. Save the native bees, save the native wasps.
May I ask what your credentials are? Not that I doubt you but when I shared this video other people did because they don't wanna trust blindly and well, I didn't have the answers to give them and I can't find them anywhere, if they exist. I know you have top tier knowledge of course but I wanna help spread the message more but can't if people have doubts I can't answer. Sorry if this is rude, but I didn't know what else to do but ask xD
Currently about to start my honours program at uni, as part of an advanced science degree. Though honestly, it’s never been of much relevance to my TH-cam - basically every video comes from research I’ve done in my own time, not from anything I learned at uni.
Awesome video! I'm always saying these things and am equally always dismayed when people are just SO STUBBORN to listen to science, simply because they startled an animal as a kid and got a little booboo. Cry me a fucking river. Anyway, my favorite animal is Philanthus gibbosus, the beewolf, a parasitic wasp and native pollinator to the US. They also paralyze Apis mellifera and lay an egg on them, followed by the grub eating the honeybee alive after hatching, which is AWESOME!
Yep! If you don’t like wasps, fine. But it’s so incredibly silly when people straight up can’t accept reality no matter how much evidence is presented.
@@Shadowbannedandcensored You are right. People want specific caterpillars, like the monarch and swallowtails, but not hornworms or cabbage white. Personally, I don't really do much pest control in my garden because the birds get to them. Last year I can report that I got over a dozen hawk moths, this year I got fewer. Then again, my columbines didn't really bloom that good this year.
@MourningDove-bn4dk All of my favorite animals, including bees, columbiform birds, and saturniid moths, are primary consumers. Even bee larvae get their essential protein from pollen. (Worker mellifera will sometimes engage in cannibalism of discarded drone pupae.) While adult wasps rely on fructose and other sugars in fruit juices, nectar (many solitary wasps really go for Peppermint and Spearmint blooms), their larvae depend on (often still living) animal protein. Adult Vespa even depend on their larvae to digest animal protein for them; the latter feed digested protein back to their caregivers. I was a hobbyist saturniid and sphingid moth breeder for well over 30 years, and the hobby is really about rearing interesting and beautiful caterpillars, even though the huge and beautiful adult moths are what attract us to saturniid and sphingid moth rearing in the first place. So I cringe when YT bombards me with videos about getting rid of Manduca Hornworms, and other caterpillars, abd ads for non selective products such as B. thuringiensis.
i hate it when people judge an entire animal's right to exist by how useful or harmful they are TO HUMANS. people love cats because they make great pets but fail to realize that cats are incredibly invasive and absolutely horrible for the environment pretty much anywhere they establish a population outside of homes (not saying cats are unethical, i own one, but not getting your cat fixed or letting one roam free outside absolutely is a horrible thing to do). people hate mosquitoes because theyre annoying and spread disease but mosquitoes are incredibly important pollinators (just like a lot of other hated dipterans btw) and their larvae serve a vital food source for fish and aquatic inverts. humans are not the end all be all of the planet, if we simply do what is best for us without making compromises for other life whether or not its helpful to us directly then we will destroy the ecosystem and go extinct. i dont care if some things are cute and cuddly and somethings are creepy or gross i hate people who say things like "im an animal lover" meanwhile they dont gaf about a single animal outside of some mammals and MAYBE amphibians if youre lucky. and i also hate it when people dismiss wasps as not being good pollinators because theyre smooth or some other bs. i literally have a video of a scoliid wasp fuzzier than most bees crawling peacefully along my hand as a handle it. ive watched pollinators come and go from my backyard garden and i regularly see wasps covered in pollen drinking from my pond
Haha I think “propaganda” would be more apt for something like…putting fabricated words in a renowned scientist’s mouth to make honeybees seem more important than they are
@BugsandBiology No. This is reactive propaganda targeted at relentless corporate propaganda and greenwashing, by substituting the same emotion driven absolutism. I'm seeing people with no understanding of basic ecology trashing "caterpillars" while praising "wasps" as single species entities, along with the inevitable "I was stung by a bee/wasp but I don't hate them" comments. The ugly reality is that temperate industrial agriculture depends on Apis mellifera. These operations are essential to most economies in the temperate world, and no amount of snark and "cleverness" will change this reality, nor will the relentless shadowbanning and censorship of informed and considered posts from biologists and beekeepers here. Wasps, particularly eusocial wasps, to varying degrees advertise their individual and colony defensive capabilities with warning colors and patterns, and perhaps comcidentally, 'malevolent' looking visages that are most fearsome among the most aggressive and venomous species. It was no accident that you chose benign looking Polistes for your thumbnail, instead of the 'evil' looking Vespa and Vespula spp. favored by anti-wasp propagandists. Polistes dominula is generally as mild towards Humans as P. fuscata (I've spent hundreds of hours studying both), and has the same "sweet" physiognom, but it mimics the warning colors and patterns of synanthropic European Vespula spp. to benefit from their much greater aggressuveness. Honeybees have little or no warning coloration, 'cute' fuzziness to maximize their efficiency as pollen collectors, and extremely 'sweet' faces with widely spaced compound eyes, features that Humans across all cultures are preprogrammed to respond positively to. No solitaryor social wasps has these features, too bad for them. Posting many support comments for comments that support your narrative while those that differ are shadowbanned or blocked is childish and unprofessional. I expect this behavior from the average YT blogger, but not from a biologist. And snark doesn't represent a substantive argument, even if it's the flavor of the day.
Great vid and yeah this hype about the important bees seemed too good to be true which you debunked quite nicely. As I understand do the bumble bees and other "wild" bees more than the tamed and cultivated.
@@Shadowbannedandcensored you know it’s possible to criticize the incessant proliferation of honeybees as these declining keystone species despite their legitimate ecological problems while also knowing a lot of agriculture depends on them right?? Besides, many foods don’t require Apis to pollinate them and if they did, any common produce that didn’t originate from eurasia wouldn’t exist.
@BugsandBiology From the anthropocentric perspective through which most people view animals and plants, people are generally aware of the importance of both native and non native bees as pollinators. Apis mellifera also gives us delicious honey. Most bees also have much 'sweeter and prettier' faces vs the often malevolent physiognomy of wasps and hornets. Wasps owe much of their unpopularity to eusocial wasps, particularly the sometimes very aggressive Vespula and Vespa spp. that have evolved towards synanthropy. The introduced synanthropic Vespula germanica has displaced native congeners in the Eastern US as it is much better adapted to Human altered habitats, and will aggressively fly at and sting people who challenge them over picnic fare, especially animal protein. The also synanthropic European Polistes dominula are not particularly aggressive towards people, but have almost completely displaced our native Polistes fuscatus in the NE US during the past 50 years. P. dominula is even patterned like Vespula spp. (and as a result, is often killed as a 'yellowjacket', while P. fuscatus is not. Eusocial and solitary wasps and hornets are relatively unimportant predators or parasitoids of cockroaches (propaganda!), because the great majority of wasps are diurnal, and seek prey or hosts among photosynthetic plants or inanimate objects in areas exposed to light during the day, while cockroaches are crepuscular and nocturnal, secretive, thigmotactic animals. I have also seen no study indicating that wasps and hornets are significant predators or parasitoids of Diptera. Few insect eaters readily eat carrion feeding flies because of the extremely heavy bacteria load and often associated toxin load that they carry. Many wasps are specialist hunters of spiders ranging from Mygalomorphs and trap door spiders to grass spiders and those cute Salticids. From the questionable criteria of which group has more impact on 'noxious' insects, spiders generally have far more impact than wasps. Some wasps are specialist pollinators of a few species of plants, but bees are far better adapted to this role. Caterpillars are important prey or hosts to many eusocial, solitary, and parasitoid wasps, to the detriment of wild silk farmers, who despite some pretenses of 'non violent' silk insect farming, kill eusocial and solitary wasps (along with birds, lizards, tree shrews, etc) that plunder their larvae. They are also the ban of hobbyist/research silkmoth keepers and breeders, as they chew into rearing sleeves, to attack the inhabitants, they kill any caterpillar they encounter as they run and fly around inside trying to escape. Parasitoid wasps that target caterpillars as hosts generally kill these after they reach their last instar, after they have already done most of their feeding and plant damage. Parasitized caterpillars usually grow and feed normally (and show no evidence of distress) until shortly before the wasp larvae paralyze them and exit to pupate. By comparison, caterpillars parasitized by tachinid and other flies often feed irregularly and fail to grow normally, thus doing less danage to Human agricultural interests.
spends 15:22 of a 21-minute video focusing on bringing down the other side of an argument... the first 15 minutes I mind you and ad in ad hominem attacks at the end of ones argument really poisons the lets be generous and say 6 minutes even of actual good information regarding wasps which support your argument oh and the hyper fixation of the eropean honey bee despite its merits reeks of cherry picking. both bees (all bees) and wasps (all wasps) play key ecological roles and neither deserve scorn. perhaps putting pro wasp arguments first and leaving out the "fucken idiots" comments might help your arguments which honestly I came in expecting much of what you said predation and crucial pollination (specifically fig wasps but I'll acknowledge others exist) as well as general pollination which is shared by reveal arthropods and I memory serves even some birds. this argument style surely will not win you any supporters as there are people who listen to the first 5 or ten minutes and think this is going to be a long distract on bees rather than an actual argument for wasps which the later part of the video makes rather well.
The “hyperfixation” on Apis mellifera was specifically because it’s the sole species of bee most people know and care about, and the clearest example of the disparity in how the two animal groups are received. And I clarified early in the video that I’d be talking about wasps after the segment on bees.
I understand what youre saying. But i can work in the garden around bees and they dont even notice me. Wasps will follow me down the street and fight me like they want my wallet. They make ot ao hard to like them.
a nest of wasps stole this guys skin to make this video 💀 fr tho venting anger is ok but atleast direct disrespect towards "them" or "wasp haters" instead of saying "you" and needlessly antagonizing the random viewer that may not even think about wasps to begin with, actually show the wasp hate and disinformation youre rebutting if thats what prompted this vid, or else the random insults towards the viewer just make no sense nothing wrong with the subject matter itself but some of the presentation is iffy, otherwise its a calm and educational vid and now I'll consider native bees and pest control wasps if I ever get into beekeeping or gardening, which is a way more valuable takeaway than the fact that wasp haters and invasive bee worshippers exist 💀
Bees and wasps could both disappear and the world would still go around. Neither of them even existed for most of life’s history. Doesn’t mean ecosystems wouldn’t suffer massively from losing important predators and pollinators. Just like I said in the video: it’s ok to hate wasps, but twisting oneself into knots to deny their importance is rather silly and pitiful.
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Cheers to @AdventureswithAmbrose for the excellent honeybee footage! Feel check out his channel if you're interested in bugs and other Aussie wildlife!
Interested, what insects _do_ need the attention?
Native pollinators for one.
🙏🏼Thanks, @BugsandBiology! 🐝
As a former beekeeper, I can state with authority and certainty that honeybees (as in "European" but originally from Africa) are only important pollinators for European and other Old World plants. They don't do much for any of the New World plants which nowadays feed most of the world (corn/maize, tomatoes, potatoes, etc.) and can actually be considered as pests to corn (maize) and other wind-pollinated plants. New World crops evolved to be pollinated by other, New World bugs, birds, bats, whatever, or the wind, long before the White Man brought his honeybees from the Old World. What the honeybees uniquely do, however, is produce industrial quantities of honey for human consumption. Which is a luxury item, not a necessity of human life.
That said, for the last couple of decades, honeybees in the New World have been having a hard time. They've had plagues of parasites either getting worse or newly appearing on several fronts, plus "Africanization" from some escapees down in Brazil making them more aggressive and less honey-productive. Back when I started beekeeping, I only had 2 or 3 hives and just for the honey, and they lasted a long time. By the time I quit, I had up to 15 hives and most of them died out every year from the various plagues despite my best efforts. And those that survived only did so because they became "Africanized", meaning they'd interbred with wild/feral "African killer bees" when requeening, so they got meaner and less honey-productive over time. But these hives kept on surviving when others did not, so I didn't requeen them myself. I tried all sorts of non-African bees, too. Russian, English, German, whatever. The results were always the same. Those that survived did so on their own by becoming Africanized and aggressive, and less into making honey.
There was a time, say 20 years ago, when I could open up one of my hives without smoking it, pull out a brood frame covered with bees, and all this while wearing only shorts and sandals. And I could show this frame to a potential customer who also wasn't wearing any protective gear, and neither of us would ever be stung. Not so about 5 years later or ever since.
@TheBullethead The main reason for the overwhelming importance of Western Honeybees in European agriculture and ecosystems is the degradation and loss of nearly all original wild ecosystems that once existed in prehistorical Europe. Most of Western Europe was originally covered by deciduous or coniferous climax forests that were destroyed centuries ago. A key reason why so many European 'wild' plants and animals are so invasive in the New Wotld and Australia is that they evolved to synanthropy centuries ago in response to original habitable loss or change, and only Human persecution limited their success as synanthropes.
More Apis species occur in Asia than anywhere else. A. mellifera underwent very rapid evolution in both Africa and in Europe, but that does not confirm that the ancestral A. mellifera originated in Africa. Biologists are still trying to determine via genetic analysis where African and Western Honeybees first evolved.
I had an apple tree that was continually being defoliated by caterpillars every year. One year, wasps set up a nest on my Apple tree, and after that, the tree flourished. Wasps saved my apple tree, and I am eternally grateful for that.
Alas, unless you live in Europe, your Apple tree is an 'invasive' from Western and Central Europe, while those caterpillars were likely native Lepidoptera. Those wasps were also probably non native invasive European Paper Wasps or German Yellowjackets.
@@motherlandbot6837 We have plenty of native paper wasps that feed on caterpillars, I really doubt that if the wasps were invasive then the caterpillars were native, either both were native or it was an invasive caterpillar with native / invasive wasp
@@motherlandbot6837 You seem to be confused about what “invasive” means, as opposed to non native. Invasive entails more than just being in a none native location.
@@motherlandbot6837 And as I said in the video, I'm not denying that invasive wasps are a thing. The difference is, no one is being misled into thinking invasive wasps are "endangered" and in need of "saving". People are perfectly willing to accept invasive wasps as invasive, yet can't comprehend the same can apply for honeybees.
@@motherlandbot6837 While the wasps may be invasive, the apple tree is not. It is non-native in Europe as well, originally from Central Asia, but afaik it relies on human assistance to thrive and has not become invasive anywhere.
Bees ARE wasps
-Clint Laidlaw
I immediately came down here to comment exactly that.
Ants too! It's wasps all the way down
@bugjams No. It's SAWFLIES all the way down! All hymenopterams are sawflies!
@@DJLucas-xv7oe
Are sawflies not considered wasps in English? In my language they are called plant wasps though, so they count as wasps in my book.
I have a crippling fear of bees and wasps, but even I'll admit that wasps are pretty cool ...
I feel the same lol
when i was little i got stung by a wasp on the shoulder and lip after walking out of a store, maybe over an ice cream cone or something, i dont know. but if i can move past my dislike for them and learn to appreciate them, anyone can.
My son got stung by a yellowjacket on his first day of kindergarten. They were learning how to stand silently in line. The teacher asked my boy why he was crying. He showed her the swelling and she asked why he hadn’t said something. “You said we had to be silent.” My stoic lad!
"or to put it more accurately, it's fuckin' bullshit" haha
Incredible video
Sometimes you just gotta ditch the niceties haha
2:10 Bugs and 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴ology
Bro didn't have to say it like that 💀
yea he might want to rethink the wording for that lol
"Phrasing!"
💀
May or may not have been on purpose...
You never hear about Africanized Honey Bees these days, I suppose Murder Hornets draws more eyes than Killer Bees.
Repeated backcrosses to semidomestic European and European derived strains of Western Honeybees has both mellowed Africanized hybrid Honeybees and reduced their tendency to swarm frequently.
I heard about both a lot idk what you're talking about.
@theangrysuchomimus5163 I haven't read or heard anything about "African Killer (Honey)bees" in our 'news media' for years.
First, those 'Killer Bees' in the US, Central, and South American were hybrids between East African Lowland Apis mellifera scutellata (which is one of 11 currently recognized subspecies of African A. mellifera, and the only African subspecies currently important in apiculture), and domesticated European A. mellifera (between 5 and 11 subspecies of ancestral European Honeybees are recognized; the Italian A. m. ligustica, and the Carniolan Honeybee (A. m. carnica) of Central Europe, are the most important among the extensively hybridized stocks of Western Honeybees in hobby and commercial apiculture worldwide. Italians are the pretty tawny yellowish workers (queens have a bright orange abdomen) that most non apiculturists in the lower 48 US states think of as Honeybees; Carniolans are much darker and of mellower temperament, Carniolan queens differ much less in appearance from their workers.
All A. mellifera colonies, wild, feral, or domestic, periodically replace their queens if the colony lives long enough. This process is known as supersedure, and may involve the old queen leave with a group of workers as a swarm, the age related death of the old queen as her workers raise some female larvae to become the future queen, or the active killing of the old queen by either her own workers in a 'love ball', or in fights with the new queens as they emerge from their queen cells. Any new queens produced via supersedure must after a few days go on one or more mating flights, during which they receive and store a lifetime's supply of sperm from drones (who fatally rupture themselves as they mate!) from any nearby colonies, including her own. What this all means is that because of the diverse European ancestry of domestic and feral Western Honeybees, any New World (East African × Western) Honeybee colonies will inevitably backcross to Western Honeybees and lose their African characteristics by genetic drift. Ironically, Italian Honeybee colonies tend to become more aggressive over time via supersedure hybridization with other Western Honeybees!
East African Lowland Honeybees are specifically adapted to savannah habitats. They were intentionally hybridized with Western Honeybees to produce commercial Honeybee strains that were harder working and more productive in subtropical and tropical grassland habitats resembling African savannahs and grasslands, but which were less likely to swarm and be hyperaggressive in colony defense than A. m. scutellata. Large commercial operations in Brazil and elsewhere effectively used these early generation in their agricultural land as they used extra protective equipment for their farm workers to deal with the aggressiveness of these bees.
Oh, to debunk another Western Honeybee myth; queens do not invariably kill each other until only one is alive. Two queens sometimes coexist amicably; this most often happens when an older queen tolerates her surviving queen daughter and vice versa.
@@theangrysuchomimus5163 youre not the general public. neither is the science community that obviously know the diffrence between invasive honey bees and bumble bees (thanks to hank green). the general public only cares about hating wasps and saving all bees.
Despite the higher American body count of the bees.
18:18 very true, argued with someone about how honey bees spread a virus that deforms the wings of bumblebees and they were still arguing that they were better than wasps
every time I see a "honeybees are so precious and wasps are pure evil" thing I want to vomit.
This video perfectly sums up everything I say about wasps and I'm so grateful that you made it.
Thanks!
It had kinda been rubbing me the wrong way for a while. Heck, that attitude is probably the very reason I went from being uninterested in wasps to liking them.
@@BugsandBiologySame!
Great video again, Jackson. I love your Shakespearianesque quote at the end, very apt. I have a few tiny native wasp nests hanging outside my front door, which I lovingly greet every day.
That’s a line from a Tim Minchin beat poem
@BugsandBiology As I said, Shakespearianesque.
Yeah was just clarifying.
Came faster than an idiot throwing a stone into a hornets nest and subsequently dies
my fascination with them began simply by asking: what do they do? Began my passion for these remarkable, misunderstood creatures.
One summer, I had a paperwasp nest under my deck. Fellas never hurt me. Just flew around and did their thing. They didn't seem to see me as a threat.
Paper wasps are chill, and just so interesting to watch too.
Same with me. I had a nest right near my room on second floor of our summer house (old and barely standing house btw). I was careful and they never bit me. However their nest happened to be right above our heating place on the first floor, so later they died or left because of heat
love both
My only grudge against wasps is that they target St. Andrew Cross spiders. Other than that, they're pretty chill.
Yeah…but that’s nature. Animals I like kill other animals I like.
🦖 “Some of the worst things imaginable have been done with the best intentions”
💯 So true.
Had to stick a JP reference in there...
Thanks again for the footage!
No joke, I love your way with words
The immense unjustified hatred these beautiful bugs are receiving is astounding. I will forever protect them.
Awesome! The unloved animals need it
Thanks a lot for providing such a differentiated documentation about what's really going on!
Psychologically invasive species is a phrase that I I a going to use from now onwards. Bees, birds, placental mammals, teleosts, cephalopods, jumping spiders and a few others have a disproportionate effect on pop culture and even funnel attention and funding for research away from other taxa. In my country, honeybees are native. Still, there are many more species that most people don’t know them. I haven’t noticed the extreme wasp hatred that exists in American social media for example. There are people who think that they are extremely dangerous and that they serve no purpose, but it hasn’t reached the level of widespread memes. People who think that honeybees are special or the lifeline of the planet do exist though. Generally many people dislike both insects if they encroach on human spaces. Wasps may congregate around food outdoors, but bees block approach and freshwater everywhere in the summer. Still, many people know that bees won’t attack you if you aren’t threatening them, and I have found even some beekeepers who don’t want to exterminate all wasps. Probably because fig production is imporntant in Greece, the fig wasp is acknowledged and even has its own special traditional name. I hope that you are going to make more videos about misunderstood species, such as reptiles, amphibians, a few mammals etc. You have a unique way of presentation that shakes people out of their comfort zone and this is a good thing. Make a pause on the goners, because the extant species need you as well.
By "have a disproportionate effect on pop culture" you don't mean necessarily positive right? Cuz I can assure you a lot of mammals, birds, fish and spiders (not sure why jumping spiders specifically) don't have good reputations. It's also weird to mention teleost fish specifically, when chondrichthyes has a similar impact on pop culture. Most ocean-related media will at least have one mention of sharks and uncommonly rays. However considering the massive diversity of ray-fined fish, it shouldn't be surprising that they are very popular.
And non-avian reptiles too have had an impact on human culture. More often than not it's expressed by a deep fear of snakes.
@ by my comment I thought that everyone understood that I meant about positive effect on pop culture only. So no fear of snakes or sharks counts. May be a few ray species are treated like teleosts. Jumping spiders are now everywhere, especially in American online media.
The unjust hate for wasps is quite real. Some will even take footage of people in biotech suites harvesting v. Mandarinia nests from hornet farms in places like Vietnam, and describe it as some sort of vicious murder hornet or "John wick " hornet attack.
Things like this are a common thing on ig and TH-cam, and more are being ai generated. It sounds silly, but as someone who's fascinated by social vespids, I unfortunately happened to get recommended a lot of anti wasp propaganda crap
well yeah. because bees are wasps😂
Spotted Lanternfly infestation in my area (Finger Lakes Region/lots of wineries, lots of grape crops being ruined) Dryinidae wasps would help clear up that problem
this content is so important, I learned a lot. thnx!
Fascinating video as always
Native wasps are always being hated on unfortunately
It's a shame that they go so under-appreciated. People just assume wasps = invasive/pest and bees = good/helpful regardless of which ones are native and which ones aren't.
Did you and Ze Frank coordinate a time for videos on wasps? If so, good to see some of my fave channels being buddies like that. If not, then it must be the wasp god hinting at how actually wasps are cool and serve a purpose in nature and often help humans out. Thank you Wasp God, your wisdom and multifaceted and virtuous presence.
Haha, wish I was big enough to collab with someone like that.
But nah, it was just a happy coincidence.
I once got stung by almost three wasps on my freaking face(eyes were saved thanks to overly large nerd glasses) still I don't understand the unprecedented hate the group gets without any hard and logical reasoning. seriously some people out there want to absolutely annihilate all types of wasps completely!
I love my paperwasp friends. They can recognize faces.
Paper wasps are some of my favourites. Could sit and watch them for hours honestly
Great video, though I would suspect that hating on wasps is typically based on a very limited knowledge of a few more aggressive, colony-building kinds
I'm assuming that was an Apis mellifera at 15:10 harassing you for daring to expose them for the frauds they are.
Would’ve made for some excellent comic timing, but that was just a fly.
And I was already getting eaten alive by mosquitoes.
Dunno why I got this recommended late but great vid and glad it finally came out! Also “cladistics, bitches!” is a great catchphrase idk what you’re talking about. I just love hymenopterans and the only wasps I actually hate are those invasive German yellow jackets that ruin being outside. Also some comments here calling this video propaganda or false because invasive wasps exist or that apis is super agriculturally important confuse me. That’ not the point of the video??
The responses have been..odd...but at the same time, all too predictable. There are plenty of unpopular animals out there, but few bring out a level of irrationality and denialism quite like wasps.
Save The Bees ❌
Save The Native Bees ✅
Nothing is that simple. NA programs to substitute Bombus impatens and Nomia melanderi for Western Honeybees have led to pathogen and parasite epizootics among these two species that have spread to wild NA bees. The wild European Bombus terrestris is now displacing wild bees in Japan.
Frustratingly, when I brought up the issue with too many honeybees being an issue for wild bee populations and we really should protect the other bees instead of the completely safe Apis mellifera, I was greeted with the statement that that's "too complicated for the voters" and we should stick with the line being about "the bees everyone knows". Nevermind that actively harms wild bee populations by making honeybees even more pampered and giving them even more of an edge.
Assuming the general populace is too dumb to comprehend anything different is a seriously silly defence for perpetuating falsehoods. But yeah, not the first time I've heard that justification.
Anyone who hates wasps has never had to deal with caterpillars.
I was trying to raise collard greens and cabbage moths, with their green caterpillars, were tearing them to shreds. Day old leaves looked like lace and I would pick half a solo cup of them off every couple days. And while I was sweating trying to get rid of them, there’d be 30 some odd hornets and mud daubers grabbing them as well. I was out there one time when one landed on my arm. Looking at it, the reason it had landed was obvious, it had 3 caterpillars in tow and was struggling to gain altitude. I waited a bit while they adjusted their insect baggage before they took off again.
I’ve also watched them tear into a bag worm nest to destroy it. It was a coordinated effort on their part and some bag worms would fall to escape. I found the wasps would readily come and take away any bag worms offered to them so I ended up hand feeding them several times.
In any hatred against wasps I’ve never heard mud daubers slandered except for their nests. Chalk it up to their timid nature as well as the ridiculous numbers of spiders they cull and store in the mud. The scariest wasp IMO is also one of the least aggressive. Tarantula Hawks make bees look vicious given how chill they are. I’ve spent a good 5 minutes hanging out with one and turning rocks over for it.
Non native and very invasive Pieris rapae caterpillars that exploit you monocultue of non native and domesticated but still slightly invasive Brassica are but ONE species of many thousands of caterpillar species, which include most that don't affect Human interests at all, and other saturniid, sphingicampid, and butterfly species that many of us welcome
Lol. Love your catchphrase. Don't lose it please!
As a tree worker in TX, I encounter wasps on almost a daily basis. I give them their space, and treat them with respect.
In 5 years, I have never been stung, even with 20 or 30 of them buzzing around my face after cutting down their home unknowingly. I still carry wasp spray, but I haven't used it in years.
Some of my coworkers get stung routinely, always while swinging and spraying at them.😂
I dislike wasps and bees only under certain conditions. When they're building nests near my front door, I want them to please do that somewhere else. Otherwise, I'm happy to watch them do what they do. They're lovely creatures.
But most importantly, thank you for pointing out that the majority of people are worried about the wrong bees. The domestic honeybee is fine. It has humans working to keep it alive. The endangered bees aren't living in human-managed hives.
Ive been saying this for years.
Trying save the bees and using Apis mellifera is like saying save the birds and use the domestic chicken
Why not save native bees AND Apis mellifera?
@Shadowbannedandcensored they don't need saving right now. There's population is stable if not increasing and in some places where they are introduced they are actually negative effect on native endangered species. Just watch the video and see why
@itsmeblank4028 Such an absolutist position. I'm a retired biologist who has seen firsthand how Western Honeybees displace native NA bees. At the same time, Western Honeybees are essential to US agriculture, and without them we would have few and extremely costly insect pollinated crops. As much as I dislike industrial agriculture (I'm a small scale hobby grower), this would leave consumers around much of the world reliant on produce from agricultural operations that promote Western Honeybees, because they remain the most cost effective pollinators for most insects pollinated crops.
I keep colonies of Osmia lignaria as alternative native pollinators for my fruit trees, and these ultraspecialist solitary bees are even more vulnerable to pathogens than Western Honeybees, because they are solitary and don't naturally occur at densities aoproximating those WITHIN Western Honeybee colonies. They are also plagued with parasitoid WASPS that are not a problem with Western Honeybees.
@@motherlandbot6837 how is it absoulist by saving that having honey bees as the poster child for endangered bees is misleading? I did not say they were not important rather it is disingenuous to treat it as though in 5 years they will go extinct when other species of bees are in those exact position, just as important to certain crops in some cases more so such as bumblebees who as reported Environment America back in 2022 has seen a 90% reduction in population.
@@itsmeblank4028Are you familiar with the problems involved in using bumblebees as pollinators for plants that require sonification for pollination (Tomatoes, Sweet Peppers, Eggplants)? In Europe and Israel Bombus terrestris is raised for this purpose, while in the US and Canada, our native Bombus impatens is used. These are plagued by Nosema bombi, parasitic mites, viral diseases (some transmitted by Honeybees), and commercial bumblebee producers lock their customers into buying additional or replacement colonies from them, instead of producing their own. Australia has two native Amegilla bees that engage in sonification and are amenable to artificial rearing (they have banned bumblebee imports), but no such bees have been identified in the US and Canada.
The multiple swarms of Western Honeybees that would settle on my home each summer have not occurred in over two decades, and every hobbyist and commercial beekeeper here is struggling with diseases and Varroa mites. If you seriously believe that we should just scrap Western Honeybee based apiculture in modern temperate agriculture, you are living in a fantasy world. That the Honeybee industry has been engaging in large scale 'greenwashing', like free range poultry producers, does not change this unpleasant reality.
I like wasps as long as they stay away from me, due to being Highly allergic to European Yellow Jacket stings. I still respect them (living in Germany) and the role they play. And I really love their beautiful faces.
Great episode
I guess Nicholas Cage should have the last word on this topic! ;)
Damned brilliant I completely agree, wasps are totally awesome!! (when not invasive) and I loved the quote at the end "If by chance I have offended.." I didn't realize it's actually originally from Shakespeare?! I'm sure I've heard it somewhere else too! Thanks for all of your spectacularly fine work!
Oh yeah it was in 'Storm' by Tim Minchin!! flipping fantastic!
th-cam.com/video/HhGuXCuDb1U/w-d-xo.html
It’s not a Shakespeare line, it’s from a Tim Minchin beat poem.
Glad you liked the video!
I've had a longstanding friendship with the polistes metricus wasps in my yard, they'll eat honey from my hand and their foundresses have wintered inside with me before, they're very intelligent and wonderful creatures
That’s awesome! There’s a few local colonies I regularly stop by, but I haven’t interacted with any to that extent yet. Might be worth trying!
I ❤ 🐝….there isn’t an I ❤wasps emoji, but I do. Wasn’t so so keen when a load flew into my dungarees and stung me 7 times 😂😂though
ive always loves wasps.
Things heating up in the hymenoptera fandom
Manipulated by selective censorship and shadowbanning. From a hobbyist moth breeder.
I loved the video, I always try to educate in the comments of wasp hate videos and have also suffered from the wasp hating clowns
You’ve got more patience than me haha!
It’s often an exercise in futility
Ok, now make a video in defence of mosquitos
Criminally low views, really high quality video.
Thanks!
Honestly not expecting high numbers anyway - I had to take a long-ish break from uploading due to sickness and uni stress, which killed my channel’s momentum.
u have made me relook invertebrate creatures completely ever since i was drawn in by ur prehistoric planet video, HOWEVER! this is where i draw the line, wasps are terrifying (im ofc including bees when i say this) and while they are definitely interesting, they are too scary for me, if its small and it flies, u can be sure im running away from it. not hating at all tho, really great video and im happy to have learnt more about this amazing but horrific creatures. thanks again for another awesome "creepy crawlies" video
Nothing wrong with being scared of wasps. I'm sure if the Australian ones weren't so chill, I'd be a bit more apprehensive around them too. Definitely a group of insects that deserve a little respect.
Dude your voice haha!
I put this voice on for "comedic aristocrat" reasons.
Its catchy, keep it up. You are an Australian?
I am Australian, yes. But growing up watching mostly British television has definitely affected the way I speak. I did apparently have a very strong Aussie accent as a kid.
Yo, can I buy Ixodiphagus starts? I have a debilitating frear of ticks (literally hurt my eye flinching at the image), and they are EVERYWHERE here in the southeast US.
Btw, this is a joke. Idk anything about the wasp much less the native range.
Great video! I personally love parasitoid wasps (i.e. most wasps) and am more than willing to...live and let live when it comes to the Vespids...
This video just about approaches perfection. A remarkable mix of information, facts, and moderate aggression. I might've enjoyed that last aspect more than I should.
That the topic happens to be one I'm rather invested in myself certainly helps.
One not strictly scientific, but nevertheless immensely enjoyable source that has on occasion covered the topic of bee... let's call it 'Overrepresentation', is Entomology Uncensored, a sadly discontinued Facebook/Twitter comic heavily focussing on wasps.
Thanks!
Perhaps the snark is a tad excessive, but I kinda can’t help it when dealing with myths that annoy me
People just want reasons to validate their fears. Wasps are bold and look mean and they fly into people faces while at the park or pool. If your reaction is flailing and screaming like a ***** when that happens, you'll believe anything you need to believe to protect your ego up and including spreading the idea that that little animal is some sort of evil spawn of the plague-Earth that _should_ be feared and destroyed.
Typical slender wasps are awesome because they are main reason why my garden grow so nicely, as they pretty much only pollinators in my area, I have few nest of paper wasps on my home and... We live in perfect harmony, as I dont bother them, they dont bother me. You just need to remember to not wave your hand around them and breath straight to their nest. Its simple as that.
And god damn some of wasps look awesome, just look at Podalonia genus or whole Sphecidae family. If you imagine "assassin" "bug" and "alien" you see that beauty.
I mean this in the most positive way, but listening to you're voice is like whiplash you sound like the most eloquent aristocrat for 80% of the video but every so often you just break down into stereotypical Ausie. very fun to listen to keep up the good vids!
Haha, that has kinda become a trademark of mine. Glad you enjoyed!
Even if the Einstein quote was real and not just a line someone made up and appended with the name of the first widely-known smart person they could think of - why do his thoughts on the subject matter? He was a physicist, not an ecologist. Might as well as cite Pauling when discussing meteorology.
People prefer (honey) bees because they tend to be less agressive than (yellow jackets) wasps. It has nothing to do with wasps being useless. On the contrary, people believe both do the same job, so they want to keep the more docile animal, making the more aggressive wasp "useless". Obviously their beliefs are unfounded, but the reasoning is not the same. Furthermore, laypeople probably don't even know hornets eat bees. They're scared of them because they look like wasps, but bigger, so they lump them all the same. Or at least that was what people I came accross on social media would do.
Also, honey bees are the only bees people care about because it's usually the only species they know of. Most people don't even know honey bees are invasive.
Doesn’t help that education of native bees is shit (at least where I live, you don’t learn about your native bee species in areas even when in the agricultural field)
I love native bees. They are so precious.
Honey bees are cool but when a colony goes rogue it is devastating. Scary fucking plague that kills anything within it's vicinity wether you acknowledge their nest or not.
Meanwhile the nobody knows about the emerald bee. Of all my states native bees, those little guys take my heart
Cheers! Btw, how can I msg you privately? I’d like to ask something.
I feel like the hatred for wasps stems from a fear of them, as they are, in comparison to their European bee counterparts, much more aggressive and bigger. However, most people forget the sheer diversity of the wasps, only really thinking of the eusocial wasps and hornets. If one looks at solitary wasps then, while they certainly are horrifying in their methods for parasotoidism, they are also incredibly diverse and truly fabulous. I have personally even suggested using a special wasp species that parasotoids on flour moth larvae, as an effective countermeasure to a flour moth problem at my fathers house, as we found other methods could never get rid of 100% of them.
I still think not wanting a wasp nest near your house is completely justified and the fear of eusocial wasps and hornets is usually justified, however I agree that these animals are some of natures best population control and its a shame they are severely understudied.
*_Cleave the Cloven Clave._*
I will never like yellow jackets
You have many great points about why I shouldn’t hate wasps but they the ops man **** the opps
Love native wasps and native bee's....a lot of people have the whole "I love bee's, save the bee's" logic but the problem is a lot of these bees' are introduced pests and not even native and they're not the bee's you should be saving at least not in our country. Save the native bees, save the native wasps.
May I ask what your credentials are? Not that I doubt you but when I shared this video other people did because they don't wanna trust blindly and well, I didn't have the answers to give them and I can't find them anywhere, if they exist. I know you have top tier knowledge of course but I wanna help spread the message more but can't if people have doubts I can't answer.
Sorry if this is rude, but I didn't know what else to do but ask xD
Currently about to start my honours program at uni, as part of an advanced science degree.
Though honestly, it’s never been of much relevance to my TH-cam - basically every video comes from research I’ve done in my own time, not from anything I learned at uni.
@@BugsandBiology thank you very much for the answer. I appreciate it a lot!
Well as long as I pollinate it says damn non-pollinating hornets that are the real nuisance. Japanese murder hornets are the worst example
Hornets pollinate too, and are also important predators. Asian hornets are only a problem in areas they have been introduced to.
Ah well, wasp ya gonna do1
Awesome video! I'm always saying these things and am equally always dismayed when people are just SO STUBBORN to listen to science, simply because they startled an animal as a kid and got a little booboo. Cry me a fucking river.
Anyway, my favorite animal is Philanthus gibbosus, the beewolf, a parasitic wasp and native pollinator to the US. They also paralyze Apis mellifera and lay an egg on them, followed by the grub eating the honeybee alive after hatching, which is AWESOME!
Yep!
If you don’t like wasps, fine. But it’s so incredibly silly when people straight up can’t accept reality no matter how much evidence is presented.
Moths are much more faster and efficient pollinators than bees and butterflies. They do most of their pollination at night.
Moths are super under-appreciated for sure
Every moth hatched as a caterpillar. So much caterpillar hate here and elsewhere on YT.
@@Shadowbannedandcensored You are right. People want specific caterpillars, like the monarch and swallowtails, but not hornworms or cabbage white. Personally, I don't really do much pest control in my garden because the birds get to them. Last year I can report that I got over a dozen hawk moths, this year I got fewer. Then again, my columbines didn't really bloom that good this year.
@MourningDove-bn4dk All of my favorite animals, including bees, columbiform birds, and saturniid moths, are primary consumers. Even bee larvae get their essential protein from pollen. (Worker mellifera will sometimes engage in cannibalism of discarded drone pupae.) While adult wasps rely on fructose and other sugars in fruit juices, nectar (many solitary wasps really go for Peppermint and Spearmint blooms), their larvae depend on (often still living) animal protein. Adult Vespa even depend on their larvae to digest animal protein for them; the latter feed digested protein back to their caregivers.
I was a hobbyist saturniid and sphingid moth breeder for well over 30 years, and the hobby is really about rearing interesting and beautiful caterpillars, even though the huge and beautiful adult moths are what attract us to saturniid and sphingid moth rearing in the first place. So I cringe when YT bombards me with videos about getting rid of Manduca Hornworms, and other caterpillars, abd ads for non selective products such as B. thuringiensis.
i hate it when people judge an entire animal's right to exist by how useful or harmful they are TO HUMANS. people love cats because they make great pets but fail to realize that cats are incredibly invasive and absolutely horrible for the environment pretty much anywhere they establish a population outside of homes (not saying cats are unethical, i own one, but not getting your cat fixed or letting one roam free outside absolutely is a horrible thing to do). people hate mosquitoes because theyre annoying and spread disease but mosquitoes are incredibly important pollinators (just like a lot of other hated dipterans btw) and their larvae serve a vital food source for fish and aquatic inverts. humans are not the end all be all of the planet, if we simply do what is best for us without making compromises for other life whether or not its helpful to us directly then we will destroy the ecosystem and go extinct. i dont care if some things are cute and cuddly and somethings are creepy or gross i hate people who say things like "im an animal lover" meanwhile they dont gaf about a single animal outside of some mammals and MAYBE amphibians if youre lucky. and i also hate it when people dismiss wasps as not being good pollinators because theyre smooth or some other bs. i literally have a video of a scoliid wasp fuzzier than most bees crawling peacefully along my hand as a handle it. ive watched pollinators come and go from my backyard garden and i regularly see wasps covered in pollen drinking from my pond
As a fan of honey bees I wont tolerate this hate speech!
What
How much did the wasps pay you to upload this blatant propaganda piece?
Haha
I think “propaganda” would be more apt for something like…putting fabricated words in a renowned scientist’s mouth to make honeybees seem more important than they are
@BugsandBiology No. This is reactive propaganda targeted at relentless corporate propaganda and greenwashing, by substituting the same emotion driven absolutism. I'm seeing people with no understanding of basic ecology trashing "caterpillars" while praising "wasps" as single species entities, along with the inevitable "I was stung by a bee/wasp but I don't hate them" comments.
The ugly reality is that temperate industrial agriculture depends on Apis mellifera. These operations are essential to most economies in the temperate world, and no amount of snark and "cleverness" will change this reality, nor will the relentless shadowbanning and censorship of informed and considered posts from biologists and beekeepers here.
Wasps, particularly eusocial wasps, to varying degrees advertise their individual and colony defensive capabilities with warning colors and patterns, and perhaps comcidentally, 'malevolent' looking visages that are most fearsome among the most aggressive and venomous species. It was no accident that you chose benign looking Polistes for your thumbnail, instead of the 'evil' looking Vespa and Vespula spp. favored by anti-wasp propagandists. Polistes dominula is generally as mild towards Humans as P. fuscata (I've spent hundreds of hours studying both), and has the same "sweet" physiognom, but it mimics the warning colors and patterns of synanthropic European Vespula spp. to benefit from their much greater aggressuveness.
Honeybees have little or no warning coloration, 'cute' fuzziness to maximize their efficiency as pollen collectors, and extremely 'sweet' faces with widely spaced compound eyes, features that Humans across all cultures are preprogrammed to respond positively to. No solitaryor social wasps has these features, too bad for them.
Posting many support comments for comments that support your narrative while those that differ are shadowbanned or blocked is childish and unprofessional. I expect this behavior from the average YT blogger, but not from a biologist. And snark doesn't represent a substantive argument, even if it's the flavor of the day.
Great vid and yeah this hype about the important bees seemed too good to be true which you debunked quite nicely. As I understand do the bumble bees and other "wild" bees more than the tamed and cultivated.
What the hell are you talking about, wasps suck! Bees are the best!
And you’re perfectly entitled to hold that opinion. Just don’t spread misinformation to justify it
@@BugsandBiology Agree man. Not going to lie, your video made me like them a bit less too!
Ants are better than both
Ants are also wasps. Bees are wasps. They are all wasps.
@ I know and ants are the best wasps
blatant bee slander
Honeybees deserve slander
@@BugsandBiology How childish, especially from a biologist.
That is one seriously self-victimising username you have there.
@@BugsandBiology stop eating produce dependent on A. mellifera pollination.
@@Shadowbannedandcensored you know it’s possible to criticize the incessant proliferation of honeybees as these declining keystone species despite their legitimate ecological problems while also knowing a lot of agriculture depends on them right?? Besides, many foods don’t require Apis to pollinate them and if they did, any common produce that didn’t originate from eurasia wouldn’t exist.
just because there are many of something doesnt mean its not endangered
there where a ton of delicious bananas at one point
there are almost none now
@BugsandBiology From the anthropocentric perspective through which most people view animals and plants, people are generally aware of the importance of both native and non native bees as pollinators. Apis mellifera also gives us delicious honey. Most bees also have much 'sweeter and prettier' faces vs the often malevolent physiognomy of wasps and hornets. Wasps owe much of their unpopularity to eusocial wasps, particularly the sometimes very aggressive Vespula and Vespa spp. that have evolved towards synanthropy. The introduced synanthropic Vespula germanica has displaced native congeners in the Eastern US as it is much better adapted to Human altered habitats, and will aggressively fly at and sting people who challenge them over picnic fare, especially animal protein. The also synanthropic European Polistes dominula are not particularly aggressive towards people, but have almost completely displaced our native Polistes fuscatus in the NE US during the past 50 years. P. dominula is even patterned like Vespula spp. (and as a result, is often killed as a 'yellowjacket', while P. fuscatus is not.
Eusocial and solitary wasps and hornets are relatively unimportant predators or parasitoids of cockroaches (propaganda!), because the great majority of wasps are diurnal, and seek prey or hosts among photosynthetic plants or inanimate objects in areas exposed to light during the day, while cockroaches are crepuscular and nocturnal, secretive, thigmotactic animals. I have also seen no study indicating that wasps and hornets are significant predators or parasitoids of Diptera. Few insect eaters readily eat carrion feeding flies because of the extremely heavy bacteria load and often associated toxin load that they carry.
Many wasps are specialist hunters of spiders ranging from Mygalomorphs and trap door spiders to grass spiders and those cute Salticids. From the questionable criteria of which group has more impact on 'noxious' insects, spiders generally have far more impact than wasps.
Some wasps are specialist pollinators of a few species of plants, but bees are far better adapted to this role.
Caterpillars are important prey or hosts to many eusocial, solitary, and parasitoid wasps, to the detriment of wild silk farmers, who despite some pretenses of 'non violent' silk insect farming, kill eusocial and solitary wasps (along with birds, lizards, tree shrews, etc) that plunder their larvae. They are also the ban of hobbyist/research silkmoth keepers and breeders, as they chew into rearing sleeves, to attack the inhabitants, they kill any caterpillar they encounter as they run and fly around inside trying to escape. Parasitoid wasps that target caterpillars as hosts generally kill these after they reach their last instar, after they have already done most of their feeding and plant damage. Parasitized caterpillars usually grow and feed normally (and show no evidence of distress) until shortly before the wasp larvae paralyze them and exit to pupate. By comparison, caterpillars parasitized by tachinid and other flies often feed irregularly and fail to grow normally, thus doing less danage to Human agricultural interests.
spends 15:22 of a 21-minute video focusing on bringing down the other side of an argument... the first 15 minutes I mind you and ad in ad hominem attacks at the end of ones argument really poisons the lets be generous and say 6 minutes even of actual good information regarding wasps which support your argument oh and the hyper fixation of the eropean honey bee despite its merits reeks of cherry picking. both bees (all bees) and wasps (all wasps) play key ecological roles and neither deserve scorn. perhaps putting pro wasp arguments first and leaving out the "fucken idiots" comments might help your arguments which honestly I came in expecting much of what you said predation and crucial pollination (specifically fig wasps but I'll acknowledge others exist) as well as general pollination which is shared by reveal arthropods and I memory serves even some birds. this argument style surely will not win you any supporters as there are people who listen to the first 5 or ten minutes and think this is going to be a long distract on bees rather than an actual argument for wasps which the later part of the video makes rather well.
The “hyperfixation” on Apis mellifera was specifically because it’s the sole species of bee most people know and care about, and the clearest example of the disparity in how the two animal groups are received.
And I clarified early in the video that I’d be talking about wasps after the segment on bees.
I understand what youre saying. But i can work in the garden around bees and they dont even notice me. Wasps will follow me down the street and fight me like they want my wallet.
They make ot ao hard to like them.
a nest of wasps stole this guys skin to make this video 💀
fr tho venting anger is ok but atleast direct disrespect towards "them" or "wasp haters" instead of saying "you" and needlessly antagonizing the random viewer that may not even think about wasps to begin with, actually show the wasp hate and disinformation youre rebutting if thats what prompted this vid, or else the random insults towards the viewer just make no sense
nothing wrong with the subject matter itself but some of the presentation is iffy, otherwise its a calm and educational vid and now I'll consider native bees and pest control wasps if I ever get into beekeeping or gardening, which is a way more valuable takeaway than the fact that wasp haters and invasive bee worshippers exist 💀
No, the absolute fuck they are not.
I will die on this hill - Wasps can go bye bye and the world will still spin.
Bees and wasps could both disappear and the world would still go around. Neither of them even existed for most of life’s history. Doesn’t mean ecosystems wouldn’t suffer massively from losing important predators and pollinators.
Just like I said in the video: it’s ok to hate wasps, but twisting oneself into knots to deny their importance is rather silly and pitiful.
skill issue