On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 18:20:10 +0000, Mary Fisher wrote:


"Tim S" wrote in message
news
On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 16:44:18 +0000, Tim Mitchell wrote:


Wasps are stripy yellow (=danger), buzzy and string like little b*ggers if
annoyed,

But you have to annoy them.

Kids can do that without mal-aforethought, just 'cos they don't know the
dangers.

unlike bees which have to be pushed quite hard to sting

Don't bees do themselves some serious injury when they sting (and they can
only do it once in their lives) because their sting is barbed and comes
detached from their little bodies? At least that's what we learnt in
biology. So there's some incentive for bees not to sting unless they are
really frightened.

Oh no they don't - honeybees are swifter to sting than wasps and can be
'annoyed' more easily than wasps.

and it
hurts a lot if you're little.

It hurts just as much if you're big. I could die if I'm stung but I'm not
afraid of either wasps or bees. I just don't provoke them.

Well, I suppose it does hurt as much. Just I'm not fundamentally so scared
of a little sting as I don't get much reaction from it. But being little
makes it way more scary.

Scared the knees off me when I was little
(though, not as much as hornets, now *they* are total b*st*rds).

Not true, they're far slower to be provoked than wasps.

Hmm. We'll have to disagree there, they scared the cr*p out of me when
they chased me from a rubbish bin in the New Forest one summer when I was
10.

To me, and you'll hate me for this, wasps=pointless and nasty, splat 'em.
Hornets=pointless and even nastier, splat 'em. Bees=honey=nice and not
at all pointless so I'm more forgiving of them, and I don't believe them
to be as fundamentally evil as wasps anyway.

As for trees, I plant them from time to time and I'll chop them down if I
have reason. I don't worry too much about it - I think I've planted more
than I've killed so the trees aren't doing too badly ;-

Tim