Stalking a Picnic Near You: Yellow Jackets

Stalking a Picnic Near You: Yellow Jackets was originally published in the BFEC Newsletter, Vol.16/No. 3, Summer 2012. 

If you read our cover story (see full newsletter), you learned that wasps are predatory, visiting flowers to dine on the assemblage of their vegetarian brethren busy collecting nectar and pollen. But as carnivores, why do they find your soda at the Labor Day picnic so irresistible? 

While it's true that wasps hunt insects, they feed their prey to their young. Yellow jackets are actually omnivores; adults eat nectar, carrion or your peanut butter-and-jelly as do their offspring once they mature. By summer's end, the newly expanded population (parents plus offspring) becomes a horde or self-gratifying sugar fiends. Imagine a room full of toddlers having a free-for-all with a bucket of Twinkies, along with their parents, who have mysteriously lost all impulse control. 

So don't take it personally — it's not that wasps simply like you (if your glass is half full) or have decided to ruin your picnic (if your glass is half empty). It's just best to keep that bucket of Twinkies under wraps until after frost.