Memes

Ooh I've been debating getting one!

What species are they?

Yay! Me too! I had so many different species visit my yard this year. Like 3 different species of big 'bumble bees'. And so many of the other kind. I like the iridescent green one!! :-D

OPs post reminded me to get a new one built!

Whereabouts do you live and what sizes of holes are you drilling?

Love me some fat bees

Yep yep! The main bees in trouble are cute little bumble bees. Since some native plants work best with their native bees, it's problematic that the sweet little dummies are struggling.

But we just really love their cousins that produce candy in exchange for houses.

Wasps are all pollinators, they just don't make honey si people hate them.

By that logic, we should extinguish humans too.

Paper wasps are generally good pollinators and not assholes, but they have yellow striping to make them look scary.

Yellow jackets are assholes, unusually aggressive and territorial and this becomes a problem because they also tend to love human food and beverage. In my region, I would also say fuck the bald-faced hornet, which is naturally related to the yellow jacket and is similarly aggressive. Fortunately less common (I haven't been stung by one, but apparently it's worse than it is with a yellow jacket).

Boll's Potter wasps (if I'm remembering their name correctly) are also common where I am and they are pretty chill and just go about pollinating. I'm sure there are a bunch of others that I haven't yet learned to identify.

tl;dr: Yellow jackets and their relatives are assholes. The rest are mostly okay.

Some wasps look scary but all they want to do is hang around the flowers.

Wasps are just as important in most ecosystems. They prey on pests, are pollinators, and act as decomposers. The only species of wasp you should hate in the US is the only one that is invasive: the Asian 'murder' hornet.

Some species of wasps pollinate and eat smaller pests.

So don't hate on the territorial demons too much!

You shouldn’t fuck wasps, they sting your dick.

Fucking carpenter bees (aka winged termites). Ironically, the males have no stingers but they are extremely aggressive and will kamakazi dive bomb you in the face repeatedly if you get near the entrance to the nest.

Viewing things from a solely commercial perspective is myopic and like most capitalistic business practitioners, promotes a mindset that thinks waaay too short term. You can't make your money off your crops decades from when you're only thinking about this quarters profits. Put simply, the selfish you today fucks yourself over tomorrow.

But even if you were to take this myopic and short sighted approach, Honey Bees are just average pollinators amongst a diverse range of insects and some small birds.

Additionally planting a wide variety of drought resistant flora is better for both wild as well as domesticated pollinators and is a more environmentally friendly practice than just keeping honey bees.

I offer two points for consideration:

1. Bees help plants maintain genetic diversity among certain plants that other pollinators may not target. Genetic diversity helps maintain a thriving variety of plant, tolerant to different environments. Especially important is our environments are changing.

2. Animals that are bred until they cannot survive outside of certain environments, (co-dependence) are destined to become extinct in the absence of said environment. (In case there's any confusion, insects fall under the umbrella of "animals" taxonomically. Also, in this sentence, the codependent animals may be humans.)

Diverse populations of bees provide benefits and necessities outside of commercial purposes, and are going the way of the American Bison. (Please note the differences from the way of the dinosaur.)

Panel 1: 😏 Panel 2: /s right?

Panel 3: 😏 Panel 4: …right?

I don't hate wasps, but I wish they'd realize the apple I'm eating comes from the tree right behind me, that has a thousand more for them to munch on

Not many realize this, but sticking with the non-bee pollination theme you have things like beetles, butterflies, moths, some species of flies, ants, wasps... the list goes on.

Non-inscect options include some speciea of bats and birds.

That's not even getting into the tons of other useful things insects do.