The Cellar Image of the Day

Where's that PillowLover chap when you need him?

A woman found this enormous wasps nest in her unused spare room. They had eaten through the pillow and mattress. The blanket was saved, though.....

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-28949601

Geez. I walk around in my house in the dark.

"Honey, would you please grab the comforter off the bed in the spare bedroom."

Not to pick on Spuck, but I find the flashing emoticon, what ever it is supposed to mean, annoying in the extreme, mainly because it has an auditory effect somewhere deep in my computer.
I am surprised to find wordplay on WASP in regard to English wasps. Isn't that an American term?
Does anyone have an idea as to what kind of wasps those are?

Really? Down here everyone knows the difference between a bee and a wasp. Bees make kids squeal and parents launch into the "leave it alone and it will leave you alone" speech.

Wasps make everyone leap up, gather their most treasured possessions, say a hail Mary, and toss a Molotov cocktail over their shoulder as they run screaming for the hills.

That picture makes me nauseous. Wasps are evil incarnate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

I may be the only person in the whole who doesn't mind wasps.
Okay, exaggeration (please please let me be special and unique! please)

But the first time I was stung I was in bed and didn't know about it until the morning when the big fat wasp fell out of my bed. It was nowhere near as bad as an ant bite. I've never worried about being stung since.

I'm not saying I'd sleep in that bed though. I'm crazy, not stupid.

I think of wasps as those longer things with hangy-downy legs, when they fly. They can sting over and over. A bee stings you, it be dead. I've been stung by many a bee but I've never been stung by a wasp. And they build nests around here. Knock on wood.

I looked up wasp images in google images, and I had to go to 'mud dauber' to find the pic of what I'm talking about. I guess what I think of as wasps are those. They build those flute-like nests. Or some woodwind instrument. That creeps me out the most, and there are tons of them around here. Things with holes creep me out. I found out from an article in Scientific American Mind (the only magazine I buy off rack) that's actually a 'thing'...like holey ceiling tiles and stuff...can't stand that. http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...raid-of-holes/

That thing looks ready to run in the Special Olympics.

(am I going to hell now?)

I hate those mud daubers. I had one bild a nest right on the shaft of the heater blower in my camper and I didn't know it until the winter got cold enough to freeze the water pipes and drop the power lines, thus rendering my house unliveable. I retreated to my camper, flipped on the heat and zap, fuse blown. I replaced the fuse and promptly blew it again. Several hours of exploration and some salty language later, I got the heater unit out and disassembled enough to find said mud nest jamming the motor. I was not happy, but did get the unit going again once I reassembled it and got it back into it's home. Little bastards!

Firefighters rescue couple after hornets nest fell through ceiling

Firefighters say they launched rescue after a large nest containing more than one hundred hornets crashed through the ceiling

Quote:

A couple were forced to escape through their bedroom window after a nest of giant hornets crashed through their ceiling.

The householders barricaded themselves behind a makeshift shelter as the angry swarm of yellow-and-black striped hornets invaded their home. Firefighters who went to their rescue said a large nest containing more than one hundred hornets had crashed through the ceiling.

"The weight of the nest in the attic caused it to crash through the ceiling into the hallway of the house in Maidenhead," said a Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service spokesman.

"Scores of hornets were released into the house and the couple locked themselves in their bedroom and called the fire service. The Slough crew arrived at around 11.30pm and helped the pair escape down a ladder from the bedroom window.

"A pest control company was due to visit the home today, and the couple are staying with friends. The weight of the nest brought it through the property's second-floor ceiling, filling the upstairs with angry hornets and trapping the pair in their bedroom. Firefighters used a ladder to rescue the couple from their room."

The bald faced hornet is the one I ain't fucken with. I'll slap a wasp or a dauber out of the air, and cut it in half with scissors, then mount its head on a toothpick to ward off his kin.

Thanks Bruce, I should have found that quote and ridded myself ot the silly notion they crashed through the ceiling.
We discussed English building vis-a-vis earthquakes a few weeks ago. A nest of a hundred wasps might weigh ten pounds. Perhaps it fell from a great height.

I got stung by a white faced hornet and it was not only painful in a way I've never experienced (ie the quality of the pain) but it also felt like I'd been administered some kind of drug. The flesh at the sting site necrotized and left a hole about a quarter inch deep and the diameter of a pencil

Quote:

Originally Posted by footfootfoot