[OT] Portuguese bumblebees

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

This is OT because it has nothing to do with linguistic theory, but as
I know António is often here I expect he can answer a query I have.

Next week I'm giving some lectures in Portugal in which I want to say
something about bumblebee metabolism. Although the lectures will be in
English I wasn't sure that everybody's English would extend to a word
like "bumblebee", so I checked with Google Translate, which assures me
that the Portuguese
For "bumblebee" is "bumblebee". I found that rather surprising, so I
tried translating from French "bourdon" and Spanish "abejorro", and
again got "bumblebee". Is there really not a more Portuguese-looking
word than that? Do they not have bumblebees in Portugal or Brazil?



--
athel

[garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk]

Athel Cornish-Bowden <acor...@ifr88.cnrs-mrs.fr> wrote:

> Next week I'm giving some lectures in Portugal in which I want to say
> something about bumblebee metabolism. Although the lectures will be in
> English I wasn't sure that everybody's English would extend to a word
> like "bumblebee", so I checked with Google Translate, which assures me
> that the Portuguese

I know next to nothing about Portuguese, but I often find Wikipedia
helpful in such cases like this. Portuguese Wikipedia links a
page named Mamangaba to the English Bumblebee article. See also the first
paragraph of the Portuguese article.

Google Translate, being statistical in nature, does not work well for
single words. Especially for languages with less resources.

--
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| __..--^^^--..__ garabik @ kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk |
-----------------------------------------------------------
Antivirus alert: file .signature infected by signature virus.
Hi! I'm a signature virus! Copy me into your signature file to help me spread!

[António Marques]

On Jan 10, 6:58 pm, Athel Cornish-Bowden <acorn...@ifr88.cnrs-mrs.fr>
wrote:

Hi, Athel.

For reasonable translations you may wish to check out http://www.reverso.net/,
though I don't know that that may help you with this word.

I'm not sure that anyone not familiar with 'bumblebee' (an english
word no portuguese speaker grows up knowing) will be familiar with
bumblebees themselves. That's because _Apis mellifera_ is _abelha_ (<
apicula), but the word can also be used for any related insect - that
is, buzzing, stinging and having yellow bands, probably producing
honey (wasps are left out by a very close call), so nobody cares much
what particular species it is - except for people in the honey trade,
who will very much care that it's _A. mellifera_ and nothing else.

That said, large bumblebees naturally take the imaginative name
_abelhão/ões_. Particularly large ones are called _sete-matam-um-boi_
'seven-(of-these-can/will)-kill-an-ox'. NB the masculine gender,
whereas honey bees are feminine. Possibly there are other names
around, but not generally known. I keep myself as far away as possible
from six-legged critters, even if I have a soft spot for bees, so I'm
not really the best source of information on this particular subject.

The word for 'drone' was _zângão/ãos_, stressed on the next-to-last
syllable. However, in recent decades, it became confused with _zangão/
ões_, stressed on the last syllable. The latter is from the weird-
looking root _zang-_, which denotes anger: _zangar-se_ get angry,
_zangado_ angry, _zanga_ row. So quite naturally Grumpy the Dwarf was
named _Zangão_, and the popularity of Snow White may be the reason
this word displaced _zângão_ for the general public.

[Christian Weisgerber]

Athel Cornish-Bowden <acor...@ifr88.cnrs-mrs.fr> wrote:

> Next week I'm giving some lectures in Portugal in which I want to say
> something about bumblebee metabolism. Although the lectures will be in
> English I wasn't sure that everybody's English would extend to a word
> like "bumblebee", so I checked with Google Translate,

Wrong tool.

> Is there really not a more Portuguese-looking word than that?

Go to the English Wikipedia, look up "bumblebee", follow the link
to the Portuguese edition. The problem appears to be that Portuguese
has a surfeit of words for bumblebee.

> Do they not have bumblebees in Portugal or Brazil?

They certainly do.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de

[Christian Weisgerber]

Antï¿œnio Marques <ent...@gmail.com> wrote:

> That's because _Apis mellifera_ is _abelha_ (< apicula), but the
> word can also be used for any related insect - that is, buzzing,
> stinging and having yellow bands, probably producing honey (wasps
> are left out by a very close call),

So Portuguese speakers distinguish bees from wasps.

I keep observing that many English speakers don't. Dictionary
entries give the impression that there's a strict distinction in
English, but I'll go out on a limb and say that most people who
claim to have been stung be a bee or complain about bees at their
picnic are actually talking about wasps. You can put this down to
ignorance, but given how widespread the usage is maybe it is time
dictionary editors added a definition like "1b /by extension/: any
stinging yellow-banded insect in the order hymenoptera".

[Skitt]

Christian Weisgerber wrote:

No, it is just stupidity and should not be legitimized by dictionaries.

--
Skitt (SF Bay Area)
http://come.to/skitt

[António Marques]

Skitt wrote (11-01-2012 18:31):
> Christian Weisgerber wrote:

They're not so easy to tell apart.
Mostly I'd say that for the portuguese layman bees are striped, not too
aggressive, and hairier than not. Stripes without hair don't say 'bee'
strongly. Of course, wasp nests are readily recognised for what they are.

[Skitt]

António Marques wrote:

I was talking only about AmE users. I don't know anything about the
Portuguese, except that once, a very long time ago, I dated a Portuguese
girl. She was very pretty ...

[Peter T. Daniels]

There was a story on NPR on Friday (both during Morning Edition and on
Science Friday) about a parasitic fly that used to infest only native
American bees but can now feed on (the imported) honeybee.

I wonder, then, whether the "bumblebee" in question is found natively
in Europe at all, so that there shouldn't be a native Portuguese term
for it in the first place.

[Adam Funk]

On 2012-01-11, Skitt wrote:

> Christian Weisgerber wrote:

>> So Portuguese speakers distinguish bees from wasps.
>>
>> I keep observing that many English speakers don't. Dictionary
>> entries give the impression that there's a strict distinction in
>> English, but I'll go out on a limb and say that most people who
>> claim to have been stung be a bee or complain about bees at their
>> picnic are actually talking about wasps. You can put this down to
>> ignorance, but given how widespread the usage is maybe it is time
>> dictionary editors added a definition like "1b /by extension/: any
>> stinging yellow-banded insect in the order hymenoptera".
>>
>
> No, it is just stupidity and should not be legitimized by dictionaries.

I don't think it's always stupidity: sometimes you don't get a good
look at what stings you. IME people sometimes say they were stung by
a wasp or a bee according to how much it hurt.


--
Mathematiker sind wie Franzosen: Was man ihnen auch sagt, übersetzen
sie in ihre eigene Sprache, so daß unverzüglich etwas völlig anderes
daraus wird. [Goethe]

[Skitt]

Adam Funk wrote:
> Skitt wrote:
>> Christian Weisgerber wrote:

>>> So Portuguese speakers distinguish bees from wasps.
>>>
>>> I keep observing that many English speakers don't. Dictionary
>>> entries give the impression that there's a strict distinction in
>>> English, but I'll go out on a limb and say that most people who
>>> claim to have been stung be a bee or complain about bees at their
>>> picnic are actually talking about wasps. You can put this down to
>>> ignorance, but given how widespread the usage is maybe it is time
>>> dictionary editors added a definition like "1b /by extension/: any
>>> stinging yellow-banded insect in the order hymenoptera".
>>
>> No, it is just stupidity and should not be legitimized by dictionaries.
>
> I don't think it's always stupidity: sometimes you don't get a good
> look at what stings you. IME people sometimes say they were stung by
> a wasp or a bee according to how much it hurt.
>

Generally, if the stinger is still in the wound, it's a bee; if there is
no stinger, it's probably a wasp. My money is on the wasp, as bees are
not particularly likely to sting you unless they feel threatened.

[Jerry Friedman]

On Jan 11, 9:31 am, na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:

> Ant nio Marques <ento...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > That's because _Apis mellifera_ is _abelha_ (< apicula), but the
> > word can also be used for any related insect - that is, buzzing,
> > stinging and having yellow bands, probably producing honey (wasps
> > are left out by a very close call),
>
> So Portuguese speakers distinguish bees from wasps.
>
> I keep observing that many English speakers don't.

A fair number don't, but "yellowjacket" is often used for yellow-
banded wasps.

> Dictionary
> entries give the impression that there's a strict distinction in
> English, but I'll go out on a limb and say that most people who
> claim to have been stung be a bee or complain about bees at their
> picnic are actually talking about wasps.

Yeah, but the real question is, of the people who get stung by wasps
at their picnic and got a decent view of what stung them, how many
call them wasps and how many call them bees?

> You can put this down to
> ignorance, but given how widespread the usage is maybe it is time
> dictionary editors added a definition like "1b /by extension/: any
> stinging yellow-banded insect in the order hymenoptera".

I'd rather see "loosely" than "by extension".

--
Jerry Friedman

[wugi]

Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> There was a story on NPR on Friday (both during Morning Edition and on
> Science Friday) about a parasitic fly that used to infest only native
> American bees but can now feed on (the imported) honeybee.
>
> I wonder, then, whether the "bumblebee" in question is found natively
> in Europe at all, so that there shouldn't be a native Portuguese term

We have native "hommels" of course, as in all temperate regions.

> for it in the first place.

It's not that there isn't one, there are too many (variations) actually, if
you look up the Pt. wikipage; some more evidence of their
wellestablishedness in the region.

Can anyone point out the etymology of bumble(bee)? They forget about it in
wiki and Merriam. Can it be a variation of hum(b)le, as in the other
Germanic words (Da. humlebi), possibly with influence of L. bombus, or else
vice versa, or...?

guido google:wugi

[Adam Funk]

On 2012-01-11, Skitt wrote:

> Adam Funk wrote:

>> I don't think it's always stupidity: sometimes you don't get a good
>> look at what stings you. IME people sometimes say they were stung by
>> a wasp or a bee according to how much it hurt.
>>
>
> Generally, if the stinger is still in the wound, it's a bee; if there is
> no stinger, it's probably a wasp. My money is on the wasp, as bees are
> not particularly likely to sting you unless they feel threatened.

Thanks, that's a bit of zoölogical knowledge I'll try to pass on!


--
The internet is quite simply a glorious place. Where else can you find
bootlegged music and films, questionable women, deep seated xenophobia
and amusing cats all together in the same place? [Tom Belshaw]

[tony cooper]

On Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:47:03 +0000, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com>
wrote:

>On 2012-01-11, Skitt wrote:
>
>> Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>
>>> So Portuguese speakers distinguish bees from wasps.
>>>
>>> I keep observing that many English speakers don't. Dictionary
>>> entries give the impression that there's a strict distinction in
>>> English, but I'll go out on a limb and say that most people who
>>> claim to have been stung be a bee or complain about bees at their
>>> picnic are actually talking about wasps. You can put this down to
>>> ignorance, but given how widespread the usage is maybe it is time
>>> dictionary editors added a definition like "1b /by extension/: any
>>> stinging yellow-banded insect in the order hymenoptera".
>>>
>>
>> No, it is just stupidity and should not be legitimized by dictionaries.
>
>I don't think it's always stupidity: sometimes you don't get a good
>look at what stings you. IME people sometimes say they were stung by
>a wasp or a bee according to how much it hurt.

The bee, wasp, and hornet sting, but the one that causes me the most
problems is the Deer Fly or Yellow Fly. They bite, rather than sting,
and the saliva they leave results in an infection no matter how
treated post-bite.
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

[James Silverton]

On 1/11/2012 1:31 PM, Skitt wrote:
> Christian Weisgerber wrote:

There is a difference in being stung by a bee and a wasp. A wasp can
withdraw its stinger after an attack but a bee cannot. It's not really
much satisfaction that the bee will probably die.

--
Jim Silverton

Extraneous "not" in Reply To.

[Glenn Knickerbocker]

On 1/11/2012 3:26 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> On Jan 11, 9:31 am, na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:
>> > So Portuguese speakers distinguish bees from wasps.
>> > I keep observing that many English speakers don't.
> A fair number don't, but "yellowjacket" is often used for yellow-
> banded wasps.

That sounds backwards to me. I'd say most people I know distinguish
other wasps from bees readily, but are liable to call yellowjackets bees
rather than wasps. It's not just because of the coloration.
Yellowjackets have a shorter thorax and a smaller separation between the
segments of the abdomen than many other wasps, so they look more like
bees in shape as well.

ŹR

[Mark Brader]

Adam Funk:

> I don't think it's always stupidity: sometimes you don't get a good
> look at what stings you.

Ob Graeme Thomas story, posted 10 weeks before his death:

************************************************************************
* From: Graeme Thomas <gra...@graemet.demon.co.uk>
* Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
* Subject: Re: The home for wasps?
* Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 23:51:07 +0100
* Message-ID: <WH0+WbCb...@graemet.demon.co.uk>

Around 40 years ago my brother, sister, and I were walking, while on
holiday, through some woods in single file. My brother stepped on a
log, which disturbed some wasps. My sister then stepped on it, which
infuriated them. I avoided the log, but they all stung me. I suffered
about a dozen stings, in several widely-separated places on my body.

Eventually we made it safely back to the house where we were staying.
My mother asked whether the insects were wasps or bees; I pointed out
that I hadn't had time to conduct extensive entomological research. At
this point one of the critters crawled out of my shorts. My mother,
clearly experienced in these things, identified it as a badly dazed
wasp, and started appropriate treatment.

I suspect that I'd react more badly to the stings these days.

************************************************************************

Reposted by
--
Mark Brader | "There is a pervasive illusion in certain quarters
Toronto | that Mother Nature is our friend. Wrong; dead wrong.
m...@vex.net | She doesn't care whether we live or die,
| and she loves surprises." -- Henry Spencer

[Jeffrey Turner]

The American Heritage Dictionary gives this as the etymology for bumble
in bumblebee (with meaning: To make a humming or droning sound; buzz.):

ETYMOLOGY:
Middle English bomblen, of imitative origin

--Jeff

[Mike Lyle]

I'd rather they left it alone: it's only in particular literary cases
that a dictionary should take mistakes on board - and this is a
mistake like "mouse" for "rat", not a loose usage like "bug" for
"insect".

--
Mike.

[Christian Weisgerber]

wugi <wugi...@scarlet.be> wrote:

> Can anyone point out the etymology of bumble(bee)?

Etymonline:

1520s, replacing M.E. humbul-be, alt. by assoc. with M.E. bombeln "to
boom, buzz," echoic, from PIE base *kem "to hum," echoic.

(The PIE base part doesn't make sense to me. Sometimes Harper
condenses these entries too much.)

[R H Draney]

Mark Brader filted:

>
>************************************************************************
>* From: Graeme Thomas <gra...@graemet.demon.co.uk>
>* Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
>* Subject: Re: The home for wasps?
>* Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 23:51:07 +0100
>* Message-ID: <WH0+WbCb...@graemet.demon.co.uk>
>
>Around 40 years ago my brother, sister, and I were walking, while on
>holiday, through some woods in single file. My brother stepped on a
>log, which disturbed some wasps. My sister then stepped on it, which
>infuriated them. I avoided the log, but they all stung me. I suffered
>about a dozen stings, in several widely-separated places on my body.
>
>Eventually we made it safely back to the house where we were staying.
>My mother asked whether the insects were wasps or bees; I pointed out
>that I hadn't had time to conduct extensive entomological research. At
>this point one of the critters crawled out of my shorts. My mother,
>clearly experienced in these things, identified it as a badly dazed
>wasp, and started appropriate treatment.
>
>I suspect that I'd react more badly to the stings these days.
>
>************************************************************************

Had Graeme been up on his insects, the sentence "my sister then stepped on it,
which infuriated them" would have given it away...an injured or crushed wasp
gives off a pheromone than spurs all the wasps in the vicinity to go into
battle-formation....r


--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.

[António Marques]

wugi wrote (11-01-2012 20:55):
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
>> There was a story on NPR on Friday (both during Morning Edition and on
>> Science Friday) about a parasitic fly that used to infest only native
>> American bees but can now feed on (the imported) honeybee.
>>
>> I wonder, then, whether the "bumblebee" in question is found natively
>> in Europe at all, so that there shouldn't be a native Portuguese term
>
> We have native "hommels" of course, as in all temperate regions.
>
>> for it in the first place.
>
> It's not that there isn't one, there are too many (variations) actually, if
> you look up the Pt. wikipage; some more evidence of their
> wellestablishedness in the region.

Looking at the page, most of those names seem to be variations of the same
tupi(?) word, which is known only in Brazil.
(I've also never seen anyone use _z(a|â)ngão_ to refer to anything other
than a drone, certainly not bumblebees, but hey, everything is possible.)

[António Marques]

Christian Weisgerber wrote (11-01-2012 22:28):
> wugi<wugi...@scarlet.be> wrote:
>
>> Can anyone point out the etymology of bumble(bee)?
>
> Etymonline:
>
> 1520s, replacing M.E. humbul-be, alt. by assoc. with M.E. bombeln "to
> boom, buzz," echoic, from PIE base *kem "to hum," echoic.
>
> (The PIE base part doesn't make sense to me. Sometimes Harper
> condenses these entries too much.)

Now I felt a pang of nostalgia for the xorbelgon basis days.

[pauljk]

"Adam Funk" <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote in message
news:ifc1u8x...@news.ducksburg.com...

> On 2012-01-11, Skitt wrote:
>
>> Adam Funk wrote:
>
>>> I don't think it's always stupidity: sometimes you don't get a good
>>> look at what stings you. IME people sometimes say they were stung by
>>> a wasp or a bee according to how much it hurt.
>>>
>>
>> Generally, if the stinger is still in the wound, it's a bee; if there is
>> no stinger, it's probably a wasp. My money is on the wasp, as bees are
>> not particularly likely to sting you unless they feel threatened.
>
> Thanks, that's a bit of zoölogical knowledge I'll try to pass on!

Also if it stings you, you know it was not a bumblebee.
pjk

[Anton Shepelev]

pauljk:

> Also if it stings you, you know it was not a bum-
> blebee.

Their queens and workers do have stings, as I read
in Khalifman's book about bubmblees whose title I
can clumsily translate as "The hornblowers play the
muster". Earlier I had practically witnessed it
when trying to catch one with bare hands.

Anton

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2012-01-11 17:31:20 +0100, na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) said:

> António Marques <ent...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> That's because _Apis mellifera_ is _abelha_ (< apicula), but the
>> word can also be used for any related insect - that is, buzzing,
>> stinging and having yellow bands, probably producing honey (wasps
>> are left out by a very close call),
>
> So Portuguese speakers distinguish bees from wasps.
>
> I keep observing that many English speakers don't.

That certainly happens, but I think most people have a clear difference
in mind. There are, of course, hundreds of different species involved,
but, at least in England, most people are only conscious of three:
honey bees, bumblebees and wasps. When I was growing up these were
always regarded as clearly different. Wasps were by far the most likely
to sting you unless you kept bees.

> Dictionary
> entries give the impression that there's a strict distinction in
> English, but I'll go out on a limb and say that most people who
> claim to have been stung be a bee or complain about bees at their
> picnic are actually talking about wasps.

I don't remember anyone ever complaining about bees at a picnic, but
many occasions when they colmplained about wasps.

> You can put this down to
> ignorance, but given how widespread the usage is maybe it is time
> dictionary editors added a definition like "1b /by extension/: any
> stinging yellow-banded insect in the order hymenoptera".

Incidentally, if anyone at AUE is puzzled why the thread was originally
called "Portuguese bumblebees", it is because I asked a question at
sci.lang about the Portuguese for "bumblebee", which Google Translate
thinks is "bumblebee", but I didn't think that could right (and it
isn't). There is an interesting difference in metabolism between honey
bees and bumblebees (interesting to biochemists, anyway), that
bumblebees can generate metabolic heat on cold sunny days so that they
can fly, but honey bees cannot. Human adults are like honey bees, but
newborn babies are like bumblebees (in this respect!).


--
athel

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

I think a bumblebee will sting you if you provoke it enough, but in
general they're less likely to sting than honeybees, and far less
likely than wasps.


> pjk
>


--
athel

[pauljk]

"Athel Cornish-Bowden" <athe...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:9n7tdu...@mid.individual.net...

Yes, that's what I had in mind. It can sting you, but unless you go
completely out of your way upsetting it for some time, it's very
unlikely to do so.

pjk

[pauljk]

"Athel Cornish-Bowden" <athe...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message

news:9n7t7i...@mid.individual.net...

> On 2012-01-11 17:31:20 +0100, na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) said:
>> António Marques <ent...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> That's because _Apis mellifera_ is _abelha_ (< apicula), but the
>>> word can also be used for any related insect - that is, buzzing,
>>> stinging and having yellow bands, probably producing honey (wasps
>>> are left out by a very close call),
>>
>> So Portuguese speakers distinguish bees from wasps.
>>
>> I keep observing that many English speakers don't.
>
> That certainly happens, but I think most people have a clear difference in mind.
> There are, of course, hundreds of different species involved, but, at least in
> England, most people are only conscious of three: honey bees, bumblebees and wasps.
> When I was growing up these were always regarded as clearly different. Wasps were by
> far the most likely to sting you unless you kept bees.

Are there any hornets in England?
I don't remember seeing any when lived there in mid seventees.
As far as I remember, a European hornet is at least an order of
magnitude more dangerous than the worst wasp one can imagine.

>> Dictionary
>> entries give the impression that there's a strict distinction in
>> English, but I'll go out on a limb and say that most people who
>> claim to have been stung be a bee or complain about bees at their
>> picnic are actually talking about wasps.
>
> I don't remember anyone ever complaining about bees at a picnic, but many occasions
> when they colmplained about wasps.
>
>> You can put this down to
>> ignorance, but given how widespread the usage is maybe it is time
>> dictionary editors added a definition like "1b /by extension/: any
>> stinging yellow-banded insect in the order hymenoptera".
>
> Incidentally, if anyone at AUE is puzzled why the thread was originally called
> "Portuguese bumblebees", it is because I asked a question at sci.lang about the
> Portuguese for "bumblebee", which Google Translate thinks is "bumblebee", but I
> didn't think that could right (and it isn't). There is an interesting difference in
> metabolism between honey bees and bumblebees (interesting to biochemists, anyway),
> that bumblebees can generate metabolic heat on cold sunny days so that they can fly,
> but honey bees cannot. Human adults are like honey bees, but newborn babies are like
> bumblebees (in this respect!).

Didn't you mean it the other way around?

I suspect that when one gets old one becomes a humble honey bee
again with permanently cold extremities. :-)

pjk

[Nick Spalding]

pauljk wrote, in <jemhfh$o15$1...@dont-email.me>
on Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:51:10 +1300:

>Are there any hornets in England?
>I don't remember seeing any when lived there in mid seventees.
>As far as I remember, a European hornet is at least an order of
>magnitude more dangerous than the worst wasp one can imagine.

Yes. I remember being shown a hornet nest once, a papery sphere
around 6 or 8 inches in diameter hanging on a tree branch with some
hornets coming and going. It was in Suffolk and must have been around
1947.
--
Nick Spalding
BrE/IrE

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2012-01-12 12:51:10 +0100, "pauljk" <paul....@xtra.co.nz> said:

> "Athel Cornish-Bowden" <athe...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:9n7t7i...@mid.individual.net...
>> On 2012-01-11 17:31:20 +0100, na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) said:
>>> António Marques <ent...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> That's because _Apis mellifera_ is _abelha_ (< apicula), but the
>>>> word can also be used for any related insect - that is, buzzing,
>>>> stinging and having yellow bands, probably producing honey (wasps
>>>> are left out by a very close call),
>>>
>>> So Portuguese speakers distinguish bees from wasps.
>>>
>>> I keep observing that many English speakers don't.
>>
>> That certainly happens, but I think most people have a clear difference
>> in mind. There are, of course, hundreds of different species involved,
>> but, at least in England, most people are only conscious of three:
>> honey bees, bumblebees and wasps. When I was growing up these were
>> always regarded as clearly different. Wasps were by far the most likely
>> to sting you unless you kept bees.
>
> Are there any hornets in England?

I was stung by a hornet in 1949, and I still have the mark it made
(though now I have to look for it, whereas for years it was easy to
see). I was put into bed for a couple of days with an ice-pack.
However, that was in Singapore, not in England. I think they may exist
in England, but they arent common.

> I don't remember seeing any when lived there in mid seventees.
> As far as I remember, a European hornet is at least an order of
> magnitude more dangerous than the worst wasp one can imagine.
>
>>> Dictionary
>>> entries give the impression that there's a strict distinction in
>>> English, but I'll go out on a limb and say that most people who
>>> claim to have been stung be a bee or complain about bees at their
>>> picnic are actually talking about wasps.
>>
>> I don't remember anyone ever complaining about bees at a picnic, but
>> many occasions when they colmplained about wasps.
>>
>>> You can put this down to
>>> ignorance, but given how widespread the usage is maybe it is time
>>> dictionary editors added a definition like "1b /by extension/: any
>>> stinging yellow-banded insect in the order hymenoptera".
>>
>> Incidentally, if anyone at AUE is puzzled why the thread was originally
>> called "Portuguese bumblebees", it is because I asked a question at
>> sci.lang about the Portuguese for "bumblebee", which Google Translate
>> thinks is "bumblebee", but I didn't think that could right (and it
>> isn't). There is an interesting difference in metabolism between honey
>> bees and bumblebees (interesting to biochemists, anyway), that
>> bumblebees can generate metabolic heat on cold sunny days so that they
>> can fly, but honey bees cannot. Human adults are like honey bees, but
>> newborn babies are like bumblebees (in this respect!).
>
> Didn't you mean it the other way around?

No. I meant it that way round. New-born babies have a lot of brown
adipose tissue, which allows them to short-circuit their energy
production system so as to produce heat rather than work. Most or all
of this brown adipose tissue disappears with age, and adults (and
children over the age of about 1) are effectively unable to generate
heat in that way. Bumblebees do something similar.

>
> I suspect that when one gets old one becomes a humble honey bee

ObAUE. "humble honey bee" -- an unfortunate choice of words, given that
bumblebees used to be known as humble bees.

> again with permanently cold extremities. :-)
>
> pjk
>

--
athel

[Christian Weisgerber]

Jerry Friedman <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Yeah, but the real question is, of the people who get stung by wasps
> at their picnic and got a decent view of what stung them, how many
> call them wasps and how many call them bees?

You get stung by the critters that are buzzing around you and that
you are slapping at, so you usually get to see them beforehand.
They won't sting without provocation.

You are far less likely to get into a confrontation with a bee in
the first place. Bees collect nectar and pollen from flowers. They
don't care for your picnic. Wasps on the other hand feed their
larvae with meat and they happily take carrion like hamburger or
ham. Bees aren't interested in fallen fruit, wasps very much are.
Hamburger and plum pie are *the* wasp magnets around here. Unless
there's a drought and they are desperate, bees won't go for sweet
drinks either. Wasps love sweet drinks. Bees are not aggressive,
but wasps have attitude. They descend on your picnic like
conquistadores planting their flag and dare you to interfere.

[Christian Weisgerber]

Athel Cornish-Bowden <athe...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> I don't remember anyone ever complaining about bees at a picnic, but
> many occasions when they colmplained about wasps.

Just google for <bees at a picnic>, <stung by a bee> and similar
phrases. Maybe it's more common in North America.

[Jerry Friedman]

On Jan 12, 4:07 am, Athel Cornish-Bowden <athel...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> On 2012-01-11 17:31:20 +0100, na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) said:
>

> > António Marques <ento...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> That's because _Apis mellifera_ is _abelha_ (< apicula), but the
> >> word can also be used for any related insect - that is, buzzing,
> >> stinging and having yellow bands, probably producing honey (wasps
> >> are left out by a very close call),
>
> > So Portuguese speakers distinguish bees from wasps.
>
> > I keep observing that many English speakers don't.
>
> That certainly happens, but I think most people have a clear difference
> in mind. There are, of course, hundreds of different species involved,

I was hoping somebody would mention that we're talking about more than
three species. According to Wikipedia, there are almost 20,000
described species of bees and something like 100,000 described species
of wasps. Most of them are small, and I for one have mistaken them
for small flies.

> but, at least in England, most people are only conscious of three:
> honey bees, bumblebees and wasps. When I was growing up these were
> always regarded as clearly different. Wasps were by far the most likely
> to sting you unless you kept bees.

The great majority of wasps can't sting, and of the ones that can,
only some colonial species are really aggressive. Of course, if you
step on a non-aggressive stinging wasp barefoot, or don't notice that
it got into your sweet drink...

According to Wikipedia, BrE "common wasp" = AmE "common
yellowjacket" (/Vespula vulgaris/), an aggressive species.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Adam Funk]

On 2012-01-12, Christian Weisgerber wrote:

> Jerry Friedman <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Yeah, but the real question is, of the people who get stung by wasps
>> at their picnic and got a decent view of what stung them, how many
>> call them wasps and how many call them bees?
>
> You get stung by the critters that are buzzing around you and that
> you are slapping at, so you usually get to see them beforehand.
> They won't sting without provocation.
>
> You are far less likely to get into a confrontation with a bee in
> the first place. Bees collect nectar and pollen from flowers. They
> don't care for your picnic. Wasps on the other hand feed their
> larvae with meat and they happily take carrion like hamburger or

_Carrion Picnicking_


--
There's a statute of limitations with the law, but not with
your wife. [Ray Magliozzi, ep. 2011-36]

[James Silverton]

On 1/12/2012 3:24 PM, Adam Funk wrote:
> On 2012-01-12, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>
>> Jerry Friedman<jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Yeah, but the real question is, of the people who get stung by wasps
>>> at their picnic and got a decent view of what stung them, how many
>>> call them wasps and how many call them bees?
>>
>> You get stung by the critters that are buzzing around you and that
>> you are slapping at, so you usually get to see them beforehand.
>> They won't sting without provocation.
>>
>> You are far less likely to get into a confrontation with a bee in
>> the first place. Bees collect nectar and pollen from flowers. They
>> don't care for your picnic. Wasps on the other hand feed their
>> larvae with meat and they happily take carrion like hamburger or
>
> _Carrion Picnicking_
>
>

I wouldn't say "provocation" since that's from the insect's point of
view. Don't get a wasp inside your shirt while driving.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Jan 12, 2:11 pm, Jerry Friedman <jerry_fried...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Jan 12, 4:07 am, Athel Cornish-Bowden <athel...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > On 2012-01-11 17:31:20 +0100, na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) said:
>
> > > António Marques <ento...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > >> That's because _Apis mellifera_ is _abelha_ (< apicula), but the
> > >> word can also be used for any related insect - that is, buzzing,
> > >> stinging and having yellow bands, probably producing honey (wasps
> > >> are left out by a very close call),
>
> > > So Portuguese speakers distinguish bees from wasps.
>
> > > I keep observing that many English speakers don't.
>
> > That certainly happens, but I think most people have a clear difference
> > in mind. There are, of course, hundreds of different species involved,
>
> I was hoping somebody would mention that we're talking about more than
> three species.  According to Wikipedia, there are almost 20,000
> described species of bees and something like 100,000 described species
> of wasps.  Most of them are small, and I for one have mistaken them
> for small flies.

120,000 or so of those species are irrelevant to the discussion.

> > but, at least in England, most people are only conscious of three:
> > honey bees, bumblebees and wasps. When I was growing up these were
> > always regarded as clearly different. Wasps were by far the most likely
> > to sting you unless you kept bees.
>
> The great majority of wasps can't sting, and of the ones that can,
> only some colonial species are really aggressive.  Of course, if you
> step on a non-aggressive stinging wasp barefoot, or don't notice that
> it got into your sweet drink...
>
> According to Wikipedia, BrE "common wasp" = AmE "common
> yellowjacket" (/Vespula vulgaris/), an aggressive species.

Does anyone actually use "common" in such names?

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Jan 12, 11:21 am, na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:

> Athel Cornish-Bowden <athel...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > I don't remember anyone ever complaining about bees at a picnic, but
> > many occasions when they colmplained about wasps.
>
> Just google for <bees at a picnic>, <stung by a bee> and similar
> phrases.  Maybe it's more common in North America.

Muhammad Ali's first great slogan was "Float like a butterfly, sting
like a bee." He's from Louisville, Kentucky.

[Jerry Friedman]

I should have said "InsEntAmE" (insect enthusiasts'...) and probably
likewise for BrE. AmE "yellowjacket" refers to a number of species
and is based on color, not taxonomy (though I'll bet that anything an
American is likely to call a yellowjacket is in family Vespidae).

--
Jerry Friedman

[Jerry Friedman]

On Jan 12, 9:17 am, na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:

> Jerry Friedman <jerry_fried...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Yeah, but the real question is, of the people who get stung by wasps
> > at their picnic and got a decent view of what stung them, how many
> > call them wasps and how many call them bees?
>
> You get stung by the critters that are buzzing around you and that
> you are slapping at, so you usually get to see them beforehand.

That doesn't mean you saw them well enough to tell whether they were
bees or wasps.

> They won't sting without provocation.
>
> You are far less likely to get into a confrontation with a bee in
> the first place.  Bees collect nectar and pollen from flowers.  They
> don't care for your picnic.  Wasps on the other hand feed their
> larvae with meat and they happily take carrion like hamburger or
> ham.  Bees aren't interested in fallen fruit, wasps very much are.
> Hamburger and plum pie are *the* wasp magnets around here.  Unless
> there's a drought and they are desperate, bees won't go for sweet
> drinks either.  Wasps love sweet drinks.  Bees are not aggressive,

(Somewhat more aggressive if they're Africanized, people say.)

> but wasps have attitude.  They descend on your picnic like
> conquistadores planting their flag and dare you to interfere.

Support for your point from the Strib:

http://www.startribune.com/printarticle/?id=48885402

I hate to get pedantic [*], but what you wrote above about wasps
applies to only a few species. Of course, it's enough.

Another wasp behavior that leads to trouble, it seems to me, is that
some of the familiar species seem to keep themselves familiar with
landmarks, such as people, and check every time they change position.
This leads the imprudent to try to swat them away. I should look up
whether that's really what the wasps are doing.

[*] I also lie a lot.

And why plum pie? Is that particularly popular where you live?

When I was at a summer camp in Ontario, we had a picnic and were
eating cherry pie with our fingers. A white admiral butterfly came
around and landed on our hands to lick the syrup off. That was a very
different experience from wasps coming to a picnic.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Don Phillipson]

"Skitt" <ski...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:jeks6l$822$1...@news.albasani.net...

> Generally, if the stinger is still in the wound, it's a bee; if there is
> no stinger, it's probably a wasp. My money is on the wasp, as bees are

> not particularly likely to sting you unless they feel threatened.

Confirmed . . . but the practical problem is that you can disturb a wasp
or bee without realizing it. At this rural address we have about one
sting per adult per year, usually wasps (e.g. paper wasps can build
nests hanging from the underside of the pool deck, which you may
not notice until it gets larger than a baseball.)

Standard remedies:
1. If a sting is present, remove it with tweezers, gripping it
along the shank and not at the attached bulb, sometimes still
full of venom, which fingers would squeeze into the wound.
2. Take a standard dose of antihistamine as soon as possible.
Our experience is that antihistamine within 5 min. makes
later discomfort negligible 4 out of 5 times.

Hornet stings are far worse than bees or wasps.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

[Mike Lyle]

On 11 Jan 2012 16:48:54 -0800, R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net>
wrote:

Bees, too. But I don't know of any European bee which nests under logs
on the ground. Nice to be reminded of Graeme, though.

--
Mike.

[Leslie Danks]

We have plenty of bees living in burrows in the ground here in our garden
in Austria. They are about the size of a "honey bee" but, to me at least.
seem more drably coloured. Being apiaristically challenged, I would need
to do some research to find out what species they are. Not tonight,
Joseph. Until we "plastered" the outside of the house, there were also any
number of bees living in holes in the well crumbly mortar between the
bricks. I would say that all of these are what we used to call "solitary
bees", as opposed to the colony-building types. (Damn--have we landed back
on the Malvinas?)

--
Les
(BrE)

[Evan Kirshenbaum]

"wugi" <wugi...@scarlet.be> writes:

> Can anyone point out the etymology of bumble(bee)? They forget about it in
> wiki and Merriam. Can it be a variation of hum(b)le, as in the other
> Germanic words (Da. humlebi), possibly with influence of L. bombus, or else
> vice versa, or...?

The OED says that "bumble" as a verb is "to boom, as a bittern; to
buzz, as a fly", and they derive it from "boom" (though "bumble" is
cited about half a century earlier to the turn of the fifteenth
century), which was originally "to hum or buzz, as a bee or beetle"
and is etymologized as

Of imitative origin; whether original in English it is impossible
to determine; compare German _bummen_, Dutch _bommen_, of similar
meaning, Old Dutch _bom_ a drum

--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
Still with HP Labs |When correctly viewed,
SF Bay Area (1982-) | Everything is lewd.
Chicago (1964-1982) |I could tell you things
| about Peter Pan,
evan.kir...@gmail.com |and the Wizard of Oz--
| there's a dirty old man!
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ | Tom Lehrer

[Christian Weisgerber]

Jerry Friedman <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> > You get stung by the critters that are buzzing around you and that
> > you are slapping at, so you usually get to see them beforehand.
>
> That doesn't mean you saw them well enough to tell whether they were
> bees or wasps.

They look quite different and if you pay a bit of attention you'll
notice that their flight movements are different, too. Around here
there are also harmless hoverflies that due to mimicry look rather
similar to wasps at first glance, more so than bees, but again they
move differently.

> I hate to get pedantic [*], but what you wrote above about wasps
> applies to only a few species.

Of course. I'm thinking primarily of yellow jackets like Vespula
vulgaris and Vespula germanica. The vast majority of wasp species
simply don't interact with humans.

> And why plum pie? Is that particularly popular where you live?

Yes. Try a Google image search for <Quetschekuche>. And in fall,
when the plums are ripe, the wasp colonies are also at their largest.

[Steve Hayes]

On Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:31:20 +0000 (UTC), na...@mips.inka.de (Christian
Weisgerber) wrote:

>So Portuguese speakers distinguish bees from wasps.
>

>I keep observing that many English speakers don't. Dictionary

>entries give the impression that there's a strict distinction in
>English, but I'll go out on a limb and say that most people who
>claim to have been stung be a bee or complain about bees at their

>picnic are actually talking about wasps. You can put this down to

>ignorance, but given how widespread the usage is maybe it is time
>dictionary editors added a definition like "1b /by extension/: any
>stinging yellow-banded insect in the order hymenoptera".

I grew up reading books that told how to distinguish bees from wasps, and the
difference between them and their respective stings.

It struck me as rather ridiculous, because South African wasps do not resemble
bees, and no one could mistake one for a bee. Wasps are generally brown, and
have longer and thinner bodies than bees.

Then I went to the UK, and discovered that English wasps resemble bees, and I
suddenly recalled all the books I had read as a child.

But bees are attracted to drinks, and I've seen them crowding around cold
drrink (AmE soda, other AmE pop) cans in a desperate rush tio drown. They are
also attracted to cream scones at dainty tees in tea gardens.


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[Jerry Friedman]

On Jan 12, 3:17 pm, Jerry Friedman <jerry_fried...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Jan 12, 1:57 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:> On Jan 12, 2:11 pm, Jerry Friedman <jerry_fried...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> ...
>
> > > According to Wikipedia, BrE "common wasp" = AmE "common
> > > yellowjacket" (/Vespula vulgaris/), an aggressive species.

It may have been wrong--there seems to be good reason to treat to the
American population as a different species.

> > Does anyone actually use "common" in such names?
>
> I should have said "InsEntAmE" (insect enthusiasts'...) and probably
> likewise for BrE.  AmE "yellowjacket" refers to a number of species
> and is based on color, not taxonomy (though I'll bet that anything an
> American is likely to call a yellowjacket is in family Vespidae).

I lose.

http://bugguide.net/node/view/360571/bgimage

--
Jerry Friedman

[Steve Hayes]

On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:07:45 -0500, "Don Phillipson" <e9...@SPAMBLOCK.ncf.ca>
wrote:

>Standard remedies:
>1. If a sting is present, remove it with tweezers, gripping it
>along the shank and not at the attached bulb, sometimes still
>full of venom, which fingers would squeeze into the wound.
>2. Take a standard dose of antihistamine as soon as possible.
>Our experience is that antihistamine within 5 min. makes
>later discomfort negligible 4 out of 5 times.

Some people are allergic to bee stings, and in that case should be taken to
hospital as soon as possible, as even one sting can kill them.

And bees can sometimes be unaccountably aggressive.

>Hornet stings are far worse than bees or wasps.

I only recently discovered that the insect I had always called a hornet was
actually a mason wasp, so now I'm not sure what a hornet is.

We had wasps that nested by our front door, and sometimes stung people going
in or out.

We also had giant wasps that nested in our electricity meter box. They were
about 5-10 times bigger than the ones that nested at the front door, but
otherwise looked similar. I've never been stung by one of those, though I
sometimes sprayed insecticide to drive them away so I could read the meter.
Perhaps they were hornets.

[Jerry Friedman]

On Jan 12, 6:39 pm, na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:

> Jerry Friedman <jerry_fried...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > You get stung by the critters that are buzzing around you and that
> > > you are slapping at, so you usually get to see them beforehand.
>
> > That doesn't mean you saw them well enough to tell whether they were
> > bees or wasps.
>
> They look quite different and if you pay a bit of attention you'll
> notice that their flight movements are different, too.

Well, yes, but I'll bet small children, people with bad vision, people
who aren't that smart, and people who've had too much beer are
overrepresented among stinging-insect-slappers at picnics. (I'd tell
a story here, but it would embarrass an adult, sober, intelligent,
clear-visioned friend of mine.)

> Around here
> there are also harmless hoverflies that due to mimicry look rather
> similar to wasps at first glance, more so than bees, but again they
> move differently.

(We only have small hover flies where I live.)

Obusage: Some entomologists favor writing "fly" compounds solid when
the referents aren't flies, such as "butterfly" and "dragonfly", but
as two words when they are flies, such as "hover fly" and "house
fly". I don't think this distinction is observed much outside
entomology. For one thing, it makes "black fly" ambiguous.

> > I hate to get pedantic [*], but what you wrote above about wasps
> > applies to only a few species.
>
> Of course.  I'm thinking primarily of yellow jackets like Vespula
> vulgaris and Vespula germanica.  The vast majority of wasp species
> simply don't interact with humans.

(Except for tantalizing and evading amateur photographers.)

> > And why plum pie?  Is that particularly popular where you live?
>
> Yes.  Try a Google image search for <Quetschekuche>.  And in fall,
> when the plums are ripe, the wasp colonies are also at their largest.

I'd eat that. Goes with potato soup?

--
Jerry Friedman

[Steve Hayes]

On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:17:19 +0000 (UTC), na...@mips.inka.de (Christian
Weisgerber) wrote:

>You are far less likely to get into a confrontation with a bee in
>the first place. Bees collect nectar and pollen from flowers. They
>don't care for your picnic. Wasps on the other hand feed their
>larvae with meat and they happily take carrion like hamburger or
>ham. Bees aren't interested in fallen fruit, wasps very much are.
>Hamburger and plum pie are *the* wasp magnets around here. Unless
>there's a drought and they are desperate, bees won't go for sweet
>drinks either. Wasps love sweet drinks. Bees are not aggressive,
>but wasps have attitude. They descend on your picnic like
>conquistadores planting their flag and dare you to interfere.

Bees too love sweet drinks, and, in dry weather, any drinks.

They also love the jam in cream scones.

Many years ago I was a water works attendant in what is now Namibia, and was
on my way with a colleague to service a gauging station on a remote river. We
hung a canvas water cooler from the wing mirror, slit the top, and filled it
with cans of beer. On the way we stopped for a beer and listened to the radio
station, and a swarm of bees settled on the canvas water cooler and began
sucking. They were obviously very thirsty. They were also very interested in
our open cans of beer, which we had to keep waving around to stop them
settling on them and getting inside.

[pauljk]

"Jerry Friedman" <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:fb422705-b855-4259...@k8g2000yqk.googlegroups.com...

> On Jan 12, 6:39 pm, na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:

[...]

>> > I hate to get pedantic [*], but what you wrote above about wasps
>> > applies to only a few species.
>>
>> Of course. I'm thinking primarily of yellow jackets like Vespula
>> vulgaris and Vespula germanica. The vast majority of wasp species
>> simply don't interact with humans.
>
> (Except for tantalizing and evading amateur photographers.)
>
>> > And why plum pie? Is that particularly popular where you live?
>>
>> Yes. Try a Google image search for <Quetschekuche>. And in fall,
>> when the plums are ripe, the wasp colonies are also at their largest.
>
> I'd eat that. Goes with potato soup?

Nah, I think I'd prefer to have it with cream and a large mug of coffee.

pjk

[R H Draney]

Don Phillipson filted:

>
>Confirmed . . . but the practical problem is that you can disturb a wasp
>or bee without realizing it. At this rural address we have about one
>sting per adult per year, usually wasps (e.g. paper wasps can build
>nests hanging from the underside of the pool deck, which you may
>not notice until it gets larger than a baseball.)

It's not bad enough that the wasps sting, and that a vicious swarm seems to be
their standard mode of existence...but those nests!...you do know where they're
getting the raw material to make that paper, don't you?...they're chewing up and
spitting out the wood trim on your house!...r


--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.

[R H Draney]

Steve Hayes filted:

>
>Many years ago I was a water works attendant in what is now Namibia, and was
>on my way with a colleague to service a gauging station on a remote river. We
>hung a canvas water cooler from the wing mirror, slit the top, and filled it
>with cans of beer. On the way we stopped for a beer and listened to the radio
>station, and a swarm of bees settled on the canvas water cooler and began
>sucking. They were obviously very thirsty. They were also very interested in
>our open cans of beer, which we had to keep waving around to stop them
>settling on them and getting inside.

Around here I can confirm that they're fascinated by folding wheelchairs, but I
can't really explain why....r

[Trond Engen]

James Silverton:

One hot summer many years ago two of my friends had a job maintaining a
large old building belonging to a museum. When on top of each their
ladder painting the underside of the eavesdrop one of them got a wasp
inside his shorts. The panic almost led to a fatal accident -- when the
other guy laughed so much he nearly fell off the ladder.

--
Trond Engen

[Anton Shepelev]

Trond Engen:

> One hot summer many years ago two of my friends

> had a job maintaining a large old building belong-

> ing to a museum. When on top of each their ladder
> painting the underside of the eavesdrop one of

> them got a wasp inside his shorts. The panic al-

> most led to a fatal accident -- when the other guy
> laughed so much he nearly fell off the ladder.

One morning in a tourist camp, I was waking to the
canteen with my friend, and he was telling a joke
that ended with: "And a bee stung him in the
tongue." At the very moment he was pronouncing the
last word, a wasp did sting him the the tongue, so
he said: "...stung him in the tooooooo!!..." and be-
gan to cry. Of course, he had to skip the break-
fast.

Anton

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Jan 12, 11:29 pm, Steve Hayes <hayes...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

> But bees are attracted to drinks, and I've seen them crowding around cold
> drrink (AmE soda, other AmE pop) cans in a desperate rush tio drown. They are
> also attracted to cream scones at dainty tees in tea gardens.

There are many canned cold drinks that aren't soda.

[Christian Weisgerber]

Jerry Friedman <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> > Yes.  Try a Google image search for <Quetschekuche>.  And in fall,
> > when the plums are ripe, the wasp colonies are also at their largest.
>
> I'd eat that. Goes with potato soup?

Optionally.

Beware the yellow-banded garnish...
http://www.f1online.de/de/bild-details/3975069.html

Usage question: "Beware" or "beware of"?

[Jerry Friedman]

On Jan 13, 8:17 am, na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:

> Jerry Friedman <jerry_fried...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > Yes.  Try a Google image search for <Quetschekuche>.  And in fall,
> > > when the plums are ripe, the wasp colonies are also at their largest.
>
> > I'd eat that.  Goes with potato soup?
>
> Optionally.
>
> Beware the yellow-banded garnish...http://www.f1online.de/de/bild-details/3975069.html

I'm changing my mind.

> Usage question: "Beware" or "beware of"?

Both sound fine to me. I think I usually omit the "of".

--
Jerry Friedman

[Leslie Danks]

"Beware of the Dog" is standard on UK garden gates and "beware the dog"
sounds odd to me. "Beware of dogs" would be normal for a general warning
against all dogs and "beware dogs" sounds odd. "Beware the German
Shepherd" refers to the species, is analogous to the OP's question, and
sounds perfectly normal to me. "Beware of the German Shepherd" would mean
to me that there is one of them and it is well nasty (or "and it is, well,
nasty"). OTOH, we have "Beware the Jabberwock, my son". No doubt someone
more cultured than I will tell us whether that is archaic, or merely a
symptom of iambic quadrametritis.

--
Les
(BrE)

[Christian Weisgerber]

Steve Hayes <haye...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I grew up reading books that told how to distinguish bees from wasps, and the
> difference between them and their respective stings.

And, quelle surprise, I just noticed that Wikipedia also has a
helpful comparison page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characteristics_of_common_wasps_and_bees

Like much of this thread it is implicitly about species from the
temperate zone of the Northern hemisphere where most English speakers
live. African species...

> But bees are attracted to drinks, and I've seen them crowding around cold
> drrink (AmE soda, other AmE pop) cans in a desperate rush tio drown. They are
> also attracted to cream scones at dainty tees in tea gardens.

... may behave differently.

[Evan Kirshenbaum]

Leslie Danks <leslie...@aon.at> writes:

> On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:38:04 -0800, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>
>> On Jan 13, 8:17 am, na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:
>>> Beware the yellow-banded
>>> garnish...http://www.f1online.de/de/bild-details/3975069.html
>>
>> I'm changing my mind.
>>
>>> Usage question: "Beware" or "beware of"?
>>
>> Both sound fine to me. I think I usually omit the "of".
>
> "Beware of the Dog" is standard on UK garden gates and "beware the dog"
> sounds odd to me.

The standard American sign is "Beware of Dog"

> "Beware of dogs" would be normal for a general warning against all
> dogs and "beware dogs" sounds odd. "Beware the German Shepherd"
> refers to the species, is analogous to the OP's question, and sounds
> perfectly normal to me. "Beware of the German Shepherd" would mean
> to me that there is one of them and it is well nasty (or "and it is,
> well, nasty"). OTOH, we have "Beware the Jabberwock, my son". No
> doubt someone more cultured than I will tell us whether that is
> archaic, or merely a symptom of iambic quadrametritis.

Also "Beware the ides of March".

Looke first, then leape, beware the mire:
Burnt Child is warnd to dread the fire.
Take heed my freend, remember this,
Short horse (they say) soone curried is.

M. Edwardes, "Of a Freend and a Flatterer", _A
Poetical Rapsody_, 1602.


--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
Still with HP Labs |Reality is that which, when you
SF Bay Area (1982-) |stop believing in it, doesn't go
Chicago (1964-1982) |away.
|
evan.kir...@gmail.com | Philip K. Dick

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

[Peter Duncanson (BrE)]

I've looked in the OED for guidance.

The quotations for the "of"-free version do not state what one should be
wary of - just "beware" as a generic "be alert".

I. Without inflexions.
1. To be cautious or on one's guard, to be wary; to take care, take
heed, in reference to a danger.

a. simply.
a1300 ...
1535 Bible (Coverdale) Eccles. iv. C, An olde kinge, that
doteth, and can not bewarre in tyme to come.
a1616 Shakespeare Tempest (1623) ii. i. 309 Shake off slumber
and beware.

b. with of (from, with, obs.): To be on one's guard against.

1297 ...
a1400 (1325) Cursor Mundi (Fairf. 14) l. 4425 Be-war of treson
of womman.
....
1714 Pope Rape of Lock (new ed.) i. 7 Beware of all, but most
beware of Man!
1836 J. Gilbert Christian Atonem. ix. 407 Let us then beware of
self-deception.

A Googles Images' search for >beware dog sign< shows signs with
various wordings: "beware of the dog", "beware of dog" and "beware dog".


--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[Leslie Danks]

On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 09:38:07 -0800, Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:

> Leslie Danks <leslie...@aon.at> writes:
>
>> On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:38:04 -0800, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>>

>>> On Jan 13, 8:17 am, na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:
>>>> Beware the yellow-banded
>>>> garnish...http://www.f1online.de/de/bild-details/3975069.html
>>>
>>> I'm changing my mind.
>>>
>>>> Usage question: "Beware" or "beware of"?
>>>
>>> Both sound fine to me. I think I usually omit the "of".
>>
>> "Beware of the Dog" is standard on UK garden gates and "beware the dog"
>> sounds odd to me.
>
> The standard American sign is "Beware of Dog"
>
>> "Beware of dogs" would be normal for a general warning against all dogs
>> and "beware dogs" sounds odd. "Beware the German Shepherd"
>> refers to the species, is analogous to the OP's question, and sounds
>> perfectly normal to me. "Beware of the German Shepherd" would mean to
>> me that there is one of them and it is well nasty (or "and it is, well,
>> nasty"). OTOH, we have "Beware the Jabberwock, my son". No doubt
>> someone more cultured than I will tell us whether that is archaic, or
>> merely a symptom of iambic quadrametritis.
>
> Also "Beware the ides of March".
>
> Looke first, then leape, beware the mire:
> Burnt Child is warnd to dread the fire. Take heed my freend,
> remember this, Short horse (they say) soone curried is.
>
> M. Edwardes, "Of a Freend and a Flatterer", _A
> Poetical Rapsody_, 1602.

At first glance I thought the last line was a warning about riding a
Shetland Pony through certain districts of Birmingham.

--
Les
(BrE)

[Leslie Danks]

On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 17:10:05 +0000, Leslie Danks wrote:

[...]

> OTOH, we have "Beware the Jabberwock, my son". No doubt someone
> more cultured than I will tell us whether that is archaic, or merely a
> symptom of iambic quadrametritis.

"Tetrametritis", of course. Sorry! I should have consulted my medical
dictionary before posting.

--
Les
(BrE)

[Peter Duncanson (BrE)]

First LOL this year.

[Christian Weisgerber]

Jerry Friedman <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> > So Portuguese speakers distinguish bees from wasps.
> >
> > I keep observing that many English speakers don't.
>

> A fair number don't, but "yellowjacket" is often used for yellow-
> banded wasps.

Among lots of garbage and false positives, Google turns up a number
of actual references to "yellow jacket bees".

[R H Draney]

Anton Shepelev filted:

>
>One morning in a tourist camp, I was waking to the
>canteen with my friend, and he was telling a joke
>that ended with: "And a bee stung him in the
>tongue." At the very moment he was pronouncing the
>last word, a wasp did sting him the the tongue, so
>he said: "...stung him in the tooooooo!!..." and be-
>gan to cry. Of course, he had to skip the break-
>fast.

Just one of the many services provided by the Wasp Anti-Defamation League....r

[Mike Lyle]

On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:01:04 -0800, Evan Kirshenbaum
<evan.kir...@gmail.com> wrote:

>"wugi" <wugi...@scarlet.be> writes:
>
>> Can anyone point out the etymology of bumble(bee)? They forget about it in
>> wiki and Merriam. Can it be a variation of hum(b)le, as in the other
>> Germanic words (Da. humlebi), possibly with influence of L. bombus, or else
>> vice versa, or...?
>
>The OED says that "bumble" as a verb is "to boom, as a bittern; to
>buzz, as a fly", and they derive it from "boom" (though "bumble" is
>cited about half a century earlier to the turn of the fifteenth
>century), which was originally "to hum or buzz, as a bee or beetle"
>and is etymologized as
>
> Of imitative origin; whether original in English it is impossible
> to determine; compare German _bummen_, Dutch _bommen_, of similar
> meaning, Old Dutch _bom_ a drum

I think it was the Catholic priest in _Whisky Galore_* to whom Compton
Mackenzie gave an unusually deep voice --in my opinion simply so that
he could write, "...bombilated like a great bee..."

*That's a good idea: excuse me if I appear somewhat sleepier than
usual tonight.

--
Mike.

[Jerry Friedman]

On Jan 13, 12:26 pm, na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:

> Jerry Friedman  <jerry_fried...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > So Portuguese speakers distinguish bees from wasps.
>
> > > I keep observing that many English speakers don't.
>
> > A fair number don't, but "yellowjacket" is often used for yellow-
> > banded wasps.
>
> Among lots of garbage and false positives, Google turns up a number
> of actual references to "yellow jacket bees".

That's sad, but there are also plenty of Americans who know
yellowjackets are wasps.

As for the people who don't, this link pretty much says it all.

"Drunk Guy Kills Yellow Jacket Bees - YouTube

"www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJeA7F1brDI
Oct 12, 2011 - 2 min - Uploaded by MrEdna182
This is me with my two sons killing Yellow Jacket Bees with fire and I
have had a few beers."

--
Jerry Friedman

[Jerry Friedman]

On Jan 11, 3:01 pm, Glenn Knickerbocker <N...@bestweb.net> wrote:
> On 1/11/2012 3:26 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:

>
> > On Jan 11, 9:31 am, na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:
> >> > So Portuguese speakers distinguish bees from wasps.
> >> > I keep observing that many English speakers don't.
> > A fair number don't, but "yellowjacket" is often used for yellow-
> > banded wasps.
>

> That sounds backwards to me.  I'd say most people I know distinguish
> other wasps from bees readily, but are liable to call yellowjackets bees
> rather than wasps.

That could be, now that you mention it.

> It's not just because of the coloration.
> Yellowjackets have a shorter thorax and a smaller separation between the
> segments of the abdomen than many other wasps, so they look more like
> bees in shape as well.

ObObscure: The "wasp waist" connection is called the petiole, like the
stem of a leaf.

--
Jerry Friedman

[John Varela]

On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 04:39:48 UTC, Steve Hayes
<haye...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

> On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:07:45 -0500, "Don Phillipson" <e9...@SPAMBLOCK.ncf.ca>
> wrote:
>
> >Standard remedies:
> >1. If a sting is present, remove it with tweezers, gripping it
> >along the shank and not at the attached bulb, sometimes still
> >full of venom, which fingers would squeeze into the wound.
> >2. Take a standard dose of antihistamine as soon as possible.
> >Our experience is that antihistamine within 5 min. makes
> >later discomfort negligible 4 out of 5 times.
>
> Some people are allergic to bee stings, and in that case should be taken to
> hospital as soon as possible, as even one sting can kill them.
>
> And bees can sometimes be unaccountably aggressive.
>
> >Hornet stings are far worse than bees or wasps.
>
> I only recently discovered that the insect I had always called a hornet was
> actually a mason wasp, so now I'm not sure what a hornet is.
>
> We had wasps that nested by our front door, and sometimes stung people going
> in or out.
>
> We also had giant wasps that nested in our electricity meter box. They were
> about 5-10 times bigger than the ones that nested at the front door, but
> otherwise looked similar. I've never been stung by one of those, though I
> sometimes sprayed insecticide to drive them away so I could read the meter.
> Perhaps they were hornets.

Since we are on different continents it's unlikely to apply, but we
have some fruit-eating wasps that are huge; my understanding is that
they don't sting.

I used to have some grape vines. One summer the grapes started
fermenting on the vine, producing a reek of alcohol under the arbor.
Several varieties of wasps were attracted to the fruit. Some of the
smaller ones would eat their way into a grape and refuse to come
out. Regardless of size, when they did fly away their path was
erratic. None of them stung anyone; I guess they were happy.

--
John Varela

[Evan Kirshenbaum]

Jerry Friedman <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> writes:

> On Jan 13, 12:26 pm, na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:
>> Jerry Friedman  <jerry_fried...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> > > So Portuguese speakers distinguish bees from wasps.
>>
>> > > I keep observing that many English speakers don't.
>>
>> > A fair number don't, but "yellowjacket" is often used for yellow-
>> > banded wasps.
>>
>> Among lots of garbage and false positives, Google turns up a number
>> of actual references to "yellow jacket bees".
>
> That's sad, but there are also plenty of Americans who know
> yellowjackets are wasps.

Until very recently (say, when I looked it up while reading this
thread), I thought that they were actually a different, but similar
insect. Certainly not bees, but not actually wasps.

> As for the people who don't, this link pretty much says it all.
>
> "Drunk Guy Kills Yellow Jacket Bees - YouTube
>
> "www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJeA7F1brDI
> Oct 12, 2011 - 2 min - Uploaded by MrEdna182
> This is me with my two sons killing Yellow Jacket Bees with fire and I
> have had a few beers."

--

Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
Still with HP Labs |He who will not reason, is a bigot;
SF Bay Area (1982-) |he who cannot is a fool; and he who
Chicago (1964-1982) |dares not is a slave.
| Sir William Drummond
evan.kir...@gmail.com

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

[John Varela]

On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 23:14:32 UTC, Mike Lyle
<mike_l...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> On 11 Jan 2012 16:48:54 -0800, R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net>
> wrote:
> >
> >Had Graeme been up on his insects, the sentence "my sister then stepped on it,
> >which infuriated them" would have given it away...an injured or crushed wasp
> >gives off a pheromone than spurs all the wasps in the vicinity to go into
> >battle-formation....r
>
> Bees, too. But I don't know of any European bee which nests under logs
> on the ground. Nice to be reminded of Graeme, though.

We have wasps called yellowjackets that sometimes nest in the
ground. You can be in for an ugly surprise if you run a lawnmower
over their nest. I once had a yellowjacket sting me through a
leather garden glove. The hand was swollen for days. Vicious
bastards.

--
John Varela

[Jerry Friedman]

On Jan 13, 3:53 pm, Evan Kirshenbaum <evan.kirshenb...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Jerry Friedman <jerry_fried...@yahoo.com> writes:
> > On Jan 13, 12:26 pm, na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:

...

> >> Among lots of garbage and false positives, Google turns up a number
> >> of actual references to "yellow jacket bees".
>
> > That's sad, but there are also plenty of Americans who know
> > yellowjackets are wasps.
>
> Until very recently (say, when I looked it up while reading this
> thread), I thought that they were actually a different, but similar
> insect.  Certainly not bees, but not actually wasps.
>
> > As for the people who don't, this link pretty much says it all.
>
> > "Drunk Guy Kills Yellow Jacket Bees - YouTube
>
> > "www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJeA7F1brDI
> > Oct 12, 2011 - 2 min - Uploaded by MrEdna182
> > This is me with my two sons killing Yellow Jacket Bees with fire and I
> > have had a few beers."

Of course, the people who don't know yellowjackets are wasps could
also be quite different from those who upload videos of their drunk
selves and their sons burning yellowjackets (which somehow I can't see
you doing).

--
Jerry Friedman

[Mike Lyle]

Did I hear the fine word "obloomerated"? Or was it "oboomerated"?

--
Mike.

[John Varela]

On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:47:29 UTC, Jerry Friedman
<jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> When I was at a summer camp in Ontario, we had a picnic and were
> eating cherry pie with our fingers. A white admiral butterfly came
> around and landed on our hands to lick the syrup off. That was a very
> different experience from wasps coming to a picnic.

When I was a counsellor at a summer camp in Texas, another boy and I
were assigned to clean up the campfire area and prepare it for the
evening. On arrival I started to pick up a burnt-out piece of wood
when I noticed a scorpion on it. In disgust I gave the log a kick
and two scorpions, seeking a dark place to hide, ran right up the
inside of my jeans leg. Well I did a lot of swatting and I got them,
but not before they had delivered a couple of stings. To my surprise
the stings weren't bad at all.

--
John Varela

[tony cooper]

On 13 Jan 2012 22:54:49 GMT, "John Varela" <newl...@verizon.net>
wrote:

I had a dead tree trimmed by some professionals. The tree trimmer
went up the tree with spiked boots and one of the belts around the
tree trunk. When he came down after trimming off the major limbs, he
stepped through a rotten section of the truck. A swarm of wasps came
out, and the man went back up the tree in a blur of speed. He stayed
up high until his ground crew dispatched the wasps.
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

[R H Draney]

John Varela filted:

>
>I used to have some grape vines. One summer the grapes started
>fermenting on the vine, producing a reek of alcohol under the arbor.
>Several varieties of wasps were attracted to the fruit. Some of the
>smaller ones would eat their way into a grape and refuse to come
>out. Regardless of size, when they did fly away their path was
>erratic. None of them stung anyone; I guess they were happy.

I once came across a cactus with a blossom on it the size of a soup bowl...at
the bottom of the blossom was at least an ounce of powdery yellow pollen, and in
the pollen on its back was a solitary bee, lying on its back kicking all six
legs in the air...if I bent down close to the flower, I could just about hear
the bee giggling hysterically....r

[Leslie Danks]

On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:54:49 +0000, John Varela wrote:

[...]

> We have wasps called yellowjackets that sometimes nest in the ground.
> You can be in for an ugly surprise if you run a lawnmower over their
> nest. I once had a yellowjacket sting me through a leather garden glove.
> The hand was swollen for days. Vicious bastards.

How would you like it if the Jolly Green Giant lawn-mowered your house
while you were having your lunch? If you lost your temper and stuck the
carving fork in his foot, would he be justified in calling you "vicious"?
Surely anthropomorphic hatred is just as silly as anthropomorphic luvvy-
duvvyness. If human beings are serious in their claim to be the most
highly developed creatures on earth, surely they have a moral duty to
treat with respect and understanding those beings perceived as less well
endowed than themselves.

--
Les
(BrE)

[Snidely]

Leslie Danks <leslie...@aon.at> scribbled something like ...

> If human beings are serious in their claim to be the most
> highly developed creatures on earth, surely they have a moral duty to
> treat with respect and understanding those beings perceived as less well
> endowed than themselves.
>

While I don't argue your conclusion, I'm not sure your premise leads
inexorably to that.

/dps

[Snidely]

na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) scribbled something like ...

> Beware the yellow-banded garnish...
> http://www.f1online.de/de/bild-details/3975069.html

A good match for the Left Coast yellow-banded garnish [1] I grew up with.
At picnics, donate the chicken skin a fair distance from the table.

>
> Usage question: "Beware" or "beware of"?
>

Yes.


("Beware the frumious bandersnatch", eh?)
"Beware of" is more common, and more likely to be used on signage, in my
experience.

[1] "yellow jacket" to us, too.

/dps

[Frank S]

"Leslie Danks" <leslie...@aon.at> wrote in message
news:4f10ced5$0$1583$91ce...@newsreader04.highway.telekom.at...

<maintaining a respectful and considerate silence>


--
Frank ess

[Frank S]

"R H Draney" <dado...@spamcop.net> wrote in message
news:jeqib...@drn.newsguy.com...

While making the photographic rounds of my garden (AmE back yard) I
discovered a pollen-shrouded bumble bee grooming himself on the center of a
large sunflower. After a few minutes (and photos) he stretched, yawned, and
rolled over on his back. When I returned after completing my rounds - five
minutes at least -he was still legs up. Some time later he was gone. I have
a feeling I am on the verge of discovering where those photos have been
hiding for the past thirty years: this week I found two boxes of boxes of
slides, six thousand images or so. I've reviewed box one of two, about three
thousand, and found a few that are worth keeping.

--
Frank ess

[DKleinecke]

On Jan 13, 2:40 am, Anton Shepelev <anton.txt@g{oogle}mail.com> wrote:
> Trond Engen:
>
> > One  hot  summer  many years ago two of my friends
> > had a job maintaining a large old building belong-
> > ing  to a museum. When on top of each their ladder
> > painting the underside of  the  eavesdrop  one  of
> > them  got  a wasp inside his shorts. The panic al-
> > most led to a fatal accident -- when the other guy
> > laughed so much he nearly fell off the ladder.

>
> One  morning  in a tourist camp, I was waking to the
> canteen with my friend, and he was  telling  a  joke
> that  ended  with:  "And  a  bee  stung  him  in the
> tongue."  At the very moment he was pronouncing  the
> last  word,  a wasp did sting him the the tongue, so
> he said: "...stung him in the tooooooo!!..." and be-
> gan  to  cry.   Of course, he had to skip the break-
> fast.
>

> Anton

When I was a youth one day eating grapes off the vines in the family
vineyard - table grapes not wine grapes - big purple grapes we called
Concords - I tried to eat a grape which contained a yellow jacket.
The wasp had opened a hole in the grape and climbed inside eating all
the pulp of the grape but leaving the skin.

That is the greatest shock I have ever felt in a long life. I still
remember it like it was yesterday - or at least immediately after I
recovered.

[DKleinecke]

I once had occasion to free a bumblebee trapped in a Mariposa Lily.
It attracted my attention by "bumbling". I hadn't known this was a
problem.

[CDB]

Frank S wrote:

> "Leslie Danks" <leslie...@aon.at> wrote:
>> John Varela wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>>> We have wasps called yellowjackets that sometimes nest in the
>>> ground. You can be in for an ugly surprise if you run a lawnmower
>>> over their nest. I once had a yellowjacket sting me through a
>>> leather garden glove. The hand was swollen for days. Vicious
>>> bastards.
>>
>> How would you like it if the Jolly Green Giant lawn-mowered your
>> house while you were having your lunch? If you lost your temper
>> and stuck the carving fork in his foot, would he be justified in
>> calling you "vicious"? Surely anthropomorphic hatred is just as
>> silly as anthropomorphic luvvy- duvvyness. If human beings are
>> serious in their claim to be the most highly developed creatures
>> on earth, surely they have a moral duty to treat with respect and
>> understanding those beings perceived as less well endowed than
>> themselves.
>
> <maintaining a respectful and considerate silence>
>

Not me. Hear, hear! Wasps will leave you alone if you're polite to
them, and they kill great numbers of garden pests. Next time one
buzzes you, try waving it away in slow motion.

[Nick Spalding]

CDB wrote, in <jeru4t$t88$1...@dont-email.me>
on Sat, 14 Jan 2012 07:58:28 -0500:

A letter-writer in The Times today claims they are beneficial insects.
--
Nick Spalding
BrE/IrE

[John Holmes]

In their home environment, when they are in balance within their ecosystem,
they probably are. In Australia where they don't belong, they cause a lot of
environmental harm.

--
Regards
John
for mail: my initials plus a u e
at tpg dot com dot au

[Vinny Burgoo]

In alt.usage.english, pauljk wrote:

>Are there any hornets in England?
>I don't remember seeing any when lived there in mid seventees.
>As far as I remember, a European hornet is at least an order of
>magnitude more dangerous than the worst wasp one can imagine.

There are hornets in the southern half of England. Beautiful creatures.

I'm not sure that they are more dangerous than ordinary wasps. Their
sting is probably worse but they are less aggressive - or perhaps
they're just less interested in humans. They don't buzz around your face
and if you get out of their way they don't follow you.

Hornets nested in the roof of my house a few years ago. We cohabited for
a while but they came into the house itself in ever-increasing numbers
and in the end I pumped poison into the nest. This felt wrong,
especially as I live right on the edge of their range, but you can't
have six of the things cross-crossing your kitchen while you're cooking
your pork chop.

I've seen them since, so at least I didn't kill the entire local
population.

--
VB

[Christian Weisgerber]

Evan Kirshenbaum <evan.kir...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > That's sad, but there are also plenty of Americans who know
> > yellowjackets are wasps.
>
> Until very recently (say, when I looked it up while reading this
> thread), I thought that they were actually a different, but similar
> insect. Certainly not bees, but not actually wasps.

I'm intrigued. What does a prototypical wasp look like to you?

[Evan Kirshenbaum]

na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) writes:

> Evan Kirshenbaum <evan.kir...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> > That's sad, but there are also plenty of Americans who know
>> > yellowjackets are wasps.
>>
>> Until very recently (say, when I looked it up while reading this
>> thread), I thought that they were actually a different, but similar
>> insect. Certainly not bees, but not actually wasps.
>
> I'm intrigued. What does a prototypical wasp look like to you?

Pretty much the same, though not necessarily yellow-banded. Not quite
as thin and perhaps a bit larger. It's mostly, I'm sure, a result of
growing up with "wasps" in the Chicago area, but running into
"yellowjackets" out here in California.

--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
Still with HP Labs |Any programming problem can be
SF Bay Area (1982-) |solved by adding another layer of
Chicago (1964-1982) |indirection. Any performance
|problem can be solved by removing
evan.kir...@gmail.com |one.

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

[Evan Kirshenbaum]

"John Holmes" <s...@sig.instead> writes:

> Nick Spalding wrote:
>> CDB wrote, in <jeru4t$t88$1...@dont-email.me>

>>> Not me. Hear, hear! Wasps will leave you alone if you're polite
>>> to them, and they kill great numbers of garden pests. Next time
>>> one buzzes you, try waving it away in slow motion.
>>
>> A letter-writer in The Times today claims they are beneficial
>> insects.
>
> In their home environment, when they are in balance within their
> ecosystem, they probably are. In Australia where they don't belong,
> they cause a lot of environmental harm.

I'm fine with them in their home environment. It's mine I don't want
them in. We occasionally get a nest in our attic, and they find their
way into our upstairs hall bathroom, where they are decidedly not
welcome. Others in the neighborhood have reported them weakening
their ceilings (from the other side) to the point where they collapse
and the entire nest falls into the house, which isn't my idea of fun.

We last had an exterminator out about five years ago and haven't had
problems since, although I did spot (and swat) one in my bedroom last
week.

--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
Still with HP Labs |Code should be designed to make it
SF Bay Area (1982-) |easy to get it right, not to work
Chicago (1964-1982) |if you get it right.

evan.kir...@gmail.com

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

[Mike Lyle]

On Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:38:00 +0000, Vinny Burgoo <hlu...@yahoo.co.uk>
wrote:

What was the short story or novella I vaguely remember in which the
headmistress of a smart finishing school in the S of France was
forever discredited because somebody took a compromising-seeming photo
of her sucking the venom out of a hornet sting on one of her charges?

--
Mike.

[Vinny Burgoo]

In alt.usage.english, Mike Lyle wrote:

>What was the short story or novella I vaguely remember in which the
>headmistress of a smart finishing school in the S of France was
>forever discredited because somebody took a compromising-seeming photo
>of her sucking the venom out of a hornet sting on one of her charges?

Vespers at St Vesta's?

--
VB

[Evan Kirshenbaum]

Snidely <snide...@gmail.com> writes:

> na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) scribbled something like ...
>

>> Usage question: "Beware" or "beware of"?
>
> Yes.
>
> ("Beware the frumious bandersnatch", eh?)

No, no. The bandersnatch is to be shunned. It's the Jabberwock and
the Jubjub bird that are to be beworn.

Carroll did it both ways, depending on meter:

"'But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,
If your Snark be a Boojum! For then
You will softly and suddenly vanish away,
And never be met with again!'

--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
Still with HP Labs |To find the end of Middle English,
SF Bay Area (1982-) |you discover the exact date and
Chicago (1964-1982) |time the Great Vowel Shift took
|place (the morning of May 5, 1450,
evan.kir...@gmail.com |at some time between neenuh fiftehn
|and nahyn twenty-fahyv).
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ | Kevin Wald

[Mike Lyle]

On Sat, 14 Jan 2012 17:43:54 +0000, Vinny Burgoo <hlu...@yahoo.co.uk>
wrote:

Robed in the vestments of St Vespasian himself. Followed by, for a
nightcap, Lambrusco at St Lambretta's.

--
Mike.

[Adam Funk]

On 2012-01-13, John Varela wrote:

> When I was a counsellor at a summer camp in Texas, another boy and I
> were assigned to clean up the campfire area and prepare it for the
> evening. On arrival I started to pick up a burnt-out piece of wood
> when I noticed a scorpion on it. In disgust I gave the log a kick
> and two scorpions, seeking a dark place to hide, ran right up the
> inside of my jeans leg. Well I did a lot of swatting and I got them,
> but not before they had delivered a couple of stings. To my surprise
> the stings weren't bad at all.

I read somewhere recently that only a relatively small number of the
world's scorpions are deadly to healthy adult humans. Not that that
makes them pleasant, of course.


--
By dint of plentiful try...catch constructs throughout our code base,
we are sometimes able to prevent our applications from aborting. We
think of the resultant state as "nailing the corpse in the upright
position". [Verity Stob]

[Jerry Friedman]

On Jan 14, 8:03 am, na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:

> Evan Kirshenbaum <evan.kirshenb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > That's sad, but there are also plenty of Americans who know
> > > yellowjackets are wasps.
>
> > Until very recently (say, when I looked it up while reading this
> > thread), I thought that they were actually a different, but similar
> > insect.  Certainly not bees, but not actually wasps.
>
> I'm intrigued.  What does a prototypical wasp look like to you?

Apparently not for Evan, but this would have been a prototypical wasp
of my childhood.

http://bugguide.net/node/view/94910

--
Jerry Friedman

[John Varela]

On Sat, 14 Jan 2012 17:38:40 UTC, Evan Kirshenbaum
<evan.kir...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm fine with them in their home environment. It's mine I don't want
> them in. We occasionally get a nest in our attic, and they find their
> way into our upstairs hall bathroom, where they are decidedly not
> welcome. Others in the neighborhood have reported them weakening
> their ceilings (from the other side) to the point where they collapse
> and the entire nest falls into the house, which isn't my idea of fun.

Cold weather will send them indoors seeking warmth. When we bought
our first house, the first time I opened the basement fuse box 40 or
50 black wasps tumbled out. What a shock! But they were all dead.

--
John Varela