[MisterBastahrd]

Reminds me of the neighbors across the street who were too lazy to get rid of an old half-barrel planter on their porch that was full of dirt and nothing else. It had hundreds of holes in the soil. Bumblebee nests. Every day, they'd take the chance of getting bopped by one of them as they entered or exited their home.

[kbutler]

That sounds awesome, actually. I'd love to attract bumblebees. I like to watch them, and love the sound they make, plus all the benefits of native pollinators...

Bumblebees are usually not aggressive, though they can sting multiple times (like wasps and unlike honeybees).

[a_e_k]

I have a lavender bush in my front yard. Besides smelling nice to people, bumblebees seem to love it. I often see half a dozen to a dozen at least as I go by. Other lavender bushes in the neighborhood always have bumblebees, too. (And the lavender bush also seems to be pretty low maintenance; it was there when we moved in a decade ago and seems to be thriving while I've just left it alone.)

[bch]

It’s been so long since I’ve been stung I don’t know which hurts more, but it must be noted the reason honey bees sting only once is that the stinger is barbed and hooks into the skin of its victim. The bee might leave, but will not live to fight another day - the bee is essentially disemboweled, as the stinger-attached organ producing/pumping venom is pulled from its guts to leave behind with the embedded stinger, continuing to pump venom into the unfortunate recipient.

[kbutler]

Yes - it hurts you, but it kills the bee. Honeybees don't want to sting you, but will if they need to.

Note also that the "continuing to pump venom" is why you shouldn't pinch a stinger to remove it - scrape it out w/ a fingernail or other item to avoid injecting yet more venom into the sting.

[ianburrell]

Best way to attract bumblebees and other native pollinators is plant native flowering plants. There are non-native plants, like dandelion, bee balm, and lavender that they really like.

[throwbadubadu]

And how often did that then actually happen? Maybe they left it there intentionally?

[yomlica8]

Bumblebees always seemed pretty docile in my experience.

Come to think of it, I can't recall ever being stung by an actual bee. Asshole wasps are another story.

[Propelloni]

I have to stand up for the poor, misunderstood wasp ;) First of, most kinds of wasps are not especially aggressive, for example consider the hornet or any of the solitaries. The ones you are probably thinking of when you say "asshole wasps" are the Common Wasp, the German Wasp and the Yellowjacket, which are all social nest builders. They are also very well adapted to human habitats, so we often occupy the same space. I had to spend two seasons with nests of German Wasps near my porch (they are a protected species and only moved if absolutely necessary) before they were driven out by hornets (another social wasp).

Thus I can only talk about the Common and the German Wasps with confidence. Those are not assholes most part of their short lives. They are animals and as such show predictable behaviour. Corner them, squeeze them, go near their nest, or suffocate them (e.g. breath on them) and they defend themselves. Otherwise, a busy worker wasp will just ignore you, just like a bee would.

Unfortunatly worker wasps are only busy 9/10 if their lives. The last 1/10 are a spent in a drunken stupor. Once the nest closes down the worker wasps suddenly become homeless and unemployed. Devoid of purpose, they spend their remaining days binging on sugar and fat, looking for brawls (a little bit like football hooligans). Unfortunatly the hunger for sugar and fat brings them even more in contact with humans, because we are a ready source for all of this.

Still, we can manage, most of us are smarter than them. If you have a fixed position, e.g. a porch, take packaging paper and rumple it into a football sized contraption resembling a social wasps nest and hang it somewhere visible. Wasps try to avoid other nests. If you are lucky hornets nest nearby. Hornets are usually docile, very easy to spot and avoid, but they are fierce nest protectors. They also like to snack on wasps.

When camping, sacrifice a beer or other sugary substance by putting it very accessible in a bowl a 5 or so metres away from where you are sitting. Coordinate with your neighbors if it is crowded ;) Even hooligan wasps prefer the troublefree beverage to zipping around other troublesome animals (i.e. us). Last but not least, you can almost always wave individual wasps aside. Take a sheet of paper or handheld fan and slowly produce an airstream to keep them away from that sugary pie-hole in your face.

I have only been stung once in the last 10 years or so and only because the poor thing got entangled in my shirt and panicked.

[agalunar]

I immensely enjoyed reading this. Thanks for sharing!

[nerdponx]

I remember my dad actually petting one that was busy collecting nectar from one of our garden plants, with his bare finger. I've never been brave enough to repeat that particular experiment but my experience too is that bumblebees are usually very docile.

The only time I've ever heard of someone getting a bumblebee sting is when they actually got one caught inside their shirt and got three or four good zaps. They are like wasps in that their stingers don't fall out when they sting, so they can keep going as long as they have venom left.

Apparently they are somewhat less docile when it comes to other bees, apparently they can be fairly aggressive and too many bumblebees around can outcompete local honeybees.

[pjmlp]

In Germany during Summer, it is great time to make friends with wasps when eating outside, they take less than a minute to show up from who knows where.

So one gets used to try to showe them away, collecting them in inverted glasses until the party is over, have something burning that might keep them way, or just surrender let them pick something and enjoy a couple of minutes pause until they take the little piece of food back to the nest (and then return).

[xp84]

I didn’t even know those big black bumblebees were bees. I remember catching and gently playing with one and my grandma telling me it was a bumblebee! It never harmed me.

[RandallBrown]

I got stung by a bumblebee while hiking once. My friend and I had stopped to chat with some other hikers and this big slow fuzzy bee buzzes over, lands on my arm, stings me, then just flys away. There was no sudden movement, we hadn't just invaded their nest, or really any reason for it to sting me that I could see.

It hurt as bad as any other sting I've ever had.

[Andrex]

Maybe he didn't like whatever subject you and your friend were discussing. :P

[mromanuk]

They are docile, until you step near their nest and they became super hostile. We were walking with my two daughters and that happen by accident. They stung my older daughter 7 or 8 times and me 2 times. I thought the stings would be painful, but in fact, they were not so painful, like a horsefly. Those guys chased us for 50 meters (or yards)

[JohnFen]

I was stung once, as a child, when I stepped on a bee.

Even in the moment, I thought "fair enough".

Wasps are just embodied evil.

[lioeters]

Yea, got stung by a bumblebee when I was a child, because I grabbed it in the palm of my hand. It hurt, I cried, but I also understood, fair enough.

[angiosperm]

The best thing to do about wasps involves a vacuum cleaner.

[toss1]

The yellow jacket wasps in the ground can be dealt with using a clear bowl and some dirt. In the evening (when they are dormant), place the clear bowl over the entrance, and seal the edges with the dirt. Be sure that there is still plenty of clear glass/plastic. With the clear 'window' area, they will keep trying to get out, but if it is fully covered, they will be motivated to dig a new entrance/exit hole. After about 3 days, there will be no activity.

The vacuum method is useful when they are in a building. Use a strong shop-vac. Mount the hose a few inches from the outlet, and turn it on for an hour each day. If you turn it on more than that, they'll learn to avoid it. This took about a week to terminate the hive.

I've done both, but only reluctantly when they are a real hazard (minimize cruelty; these aren't quick deaths). The nest will die out anyway in the autumn, except for the queen and then it will move for the next year.

[euroderf]

Went on a wasp jihad as a teenager. Waited til dusk, hit all the nests with bug spray, used a stick to knock'em into coffee cans, added gasoline and torched'em up. Oddly satisfying.

[angiosperm]

Seems worth mention here that wet baking soda makes a sting stop hurting immediately.

[pfdietz]

This sounds like an excellent thing to have in a garden!