Selects: Wasps: Not as cute as bees

Charles W. Bryant (0:00)

Hi, everybody, happy Saturday. We are rolling through COVID one episode at a time every other week with me, your host, COVID Chuck. I had it three times, so I can call myself that.

August 4th, 2020, middle of the summer during COVID. People are out and about a little bit as far as getting out into nature at this point because it's summertime, but they're still keeping their distance, hopefully still masking up, and hopefully listening to this episode at the time. Wasps, you know what's coming. Colon, not as cute as bees. And you can check that out right now.

SPEAKER_2 (0:39)

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

Josh Clark (0:49)

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's out there somewhere, which makes this Stuff You Should Nezzo.

Charles W. Bryant (0:58)

Yeah, old school insect-a-dish from Robert Lamb.

Josh Clark (1:02)

I know, it's got mouth parts in it, but it's no Tracy Wilson joint.

Charles W. Bryant (1:07)

Yeah, it's Tracy.

Josh Clark (1:08)

But it's still good. It's super charming. Robert starts this article out, from the perspective of a spider who has been dragged into a wasp's nest and is about to be eaten alive by a wasp larva. Yeah. It's pretty interesting. Yeah. It's a good article, I guess is what I'm trying to say. And if you are not familiar with Robert Lamb, then friends, you are missing out on not one, but two, no, three really great podcasts that that guy has put out.

What is it? Stuffed Below Your Mind?

Charles W. Bryant (1:39)

Of course, the stalwart science tech, well, not tech, sort of science plus show.

Josh Clark (1:45)

Yes. Yeah, yeah. In depth, like super deep rabbit hole, interesting stuff. And then he did one called Transhuman.

Charles W. Bryant (1:53)

Yeah, that's a fiction, scripted sci-fi. Very cool.

Josh Clark (1:57)

Yeah. And then also he and Joe, who he does Stuffed Below Your Mind with, also do Invention too, which is kind of an in-depth rabbit hole thing about Invention. So check all those out, everybody.

Yeah.

Charles W. Bryant (2:09)

It was fun to kind of get back to basics with a nice little insect cast on wasps. And dude, I went outside today on my side deck to let the dogs out.

And lo and behold, I looked at...

Josh Clark (2:22)

Whoop, whoop, whoop.

Charles W. Bryant (2:24)

What?

Josh Clark (2:25)

I was, you said, who let the dogs out?

Charles W. Bryant (2:27)

Sorry.

Josh Clark (2:27)

You said let the dogs out, so I had to...

Charles W. Bryant (2:30)

I thought you were saying wait, wait, wait.

Josh Clark (2:32)

No, no, I was saying whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop.

Charles W. Bryant (2:36)

Oh boy. That was a wasp nest on the ground.

Josh Clark (2:40)

Okay, good. All right. Sorry, did I knock the legs out from under that story?

Charles W. Bryant (2:45)

No, it was just a wasp nest, but it was, you know, the timing of it all.

Josh Clark (2:47)

Was it live?

Charles W. Bryant (2:48)

Oh, I didn't poke it to see.

It was not attached. I think it had fallen. So my guess is that it did not have any more wasps residing in it.

Josh Clark (2:58)

Man, that's gotta be a real letdown because it's the middle of summer right now. So they're wanting to like grow. There was probably larva in there.

Charles W. Bryant (3:07)

Huh. Yeah.

Josh Clark (3:08)

That's really weird. They must have abandoned it then.

Charles W. Bryant (3:12)

Yeah, and wasps are, you know, I think, you know, everyone loves the bees now because they should because bees are awesome. And bees produce honey, and we want bees to stick around. But I think wasps and hornets, which are a type of wasps, are still just so maligned.

And they're the ones that people will reach for their can of raid to spray.

Josh Clark (3:36)

With no qualm.

Charles W. Bryant (3:37)

Yeah, and you shouldn't. Don't do it. Let the wasps live. I'll go ahead and say it now. We're going to say it a bunch. But let them live.

Josh Clark (3:43)

Totally, Chuck. Thank you. Yeah, we're here to open everyone's eyes to the function and purpose of wasps' existence. They're not like mosquitoes. Remember in the mosquitoes episode, we basically concluded that there's no reason for mosquitoes to be around. And they just are terrible.

Wasps are not like that. And I think Robert does a really good job of basically pinning down why wasps get such a bad rap. One is that their stings pack such a wallop compared to other stinging insects.