Last weekend while weeding the garden, I found out with crystal clear clarity that paper wasps do not take kindly to being disturbed. Yesterday afternoon I was back in the garden and had another run in with some sort of critter. After the fact, I went back to investigate exactly what I’d been bitten/stung by to find out that it was in fact another wasp. This time however, they were black and orange/yellow instead of black and grey like last weekend. I was only stung once this time, however it really packed a punch and my left hand looks similar to what you’d see on the Hulk or Hellboy.

Last weekend I needed to rid the back door of our home of some paper wasps. Not knowing of a sure fire way to safely get rid of them, I turned to a trusty bottle of Mortein. As it turns out, paper wasps really don’t enjoy getting dosed with Mortein. In fact, as soon as I sprayed the paper wasp nest – they immediately reacted by flying around furiously looking for something to lay into. Expecting that they were going to go berserk, I was able to get away without getting stung.

Today, I was weeding in the back yard and I unfortunately chanced upon another paper wasp nest in an unlikely position. Worst though, is that I had no idea it was there until I felt the crisp, sharp pain of a paper wasp stinging my thumb! Initially, I thought I’d just brushed it against something sharp and didn’t think anything of it until it happened again, at which point I could see the paper wasps swarming away from their nest. I was pretty lucky in the end, there were about a dozen paper wasps and I was only stung twice on the thumb and it didn’t swell that much. That said, its about six hours since I was stung and I still can’t bend my thumb completely pain free.

Moral of the story, only get close to live paper wasps and their nests if you’re packing a bit fat bottle of Mortein.