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Re:Caterpillar offers phone with built-in FLIR camera by romanovcode on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @01:32AM (#33891324)
Why are wasps protected in Germany? I understand bees, but what good are wasps for?
Re:Caterpillar offers phone with built-in FLIR camera by biztos on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @02:35AM (#33891667)
Without the wasps crawling into the sugar dispensers at every single outdoor café in Germany all summer long, people would eat the sugar and create a diabetes epidemic.

At least that was my impression in Berlin; wasps got all the sugar, Berliners stayed pretty thin for the most part.

Re:Caterpillar offers phone with built-in FLIR camera by JakobH on Friday December 09, 2022 @04:57AM (#33919573)
Sounds like i need more wasps in my house!
Re:Caterpillar offers phone with built-in FLIR camera by type0 on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @03:25PM (#33899758)
Ah, this explains the bitterness of Berliners
Re:Caterpillar offers phone with built-in FLIR camera by constGard on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @02:01AM (#33891498)
I'll add my own annecdote to this article. We had a wasp nest under the eaves of the house and I managed to successfully move them into a little hutch I built near the garden. I can't say I directly observed them saving the tomatoes, but we did have fewer tomato hornworms than in previous years.

They were also really docile and tolerated a good deal of me fumbling around with the nest. I waited until it was cold out and covered up pretty thouroghly, but they were mostly content to let me flop them around with a set of long BBQ tongs.

Re:Caterpillar offers phone with built-in FLIR camera by KMnO4 on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @02:55AM (#33891803)
Despite their aggression and desire for sugar, wasps are useful and important pollinators the same way that bees are.
Re:Caterpillar offers phone with built-in FLIR camera by type0 on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @03:27PM (#33899783)
They also annihilate the bees which are much better pollinators
Re:Caterpillar offers phone with built-in FLIR camera by nibbleshifter on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @02:08AM (#33891537)
Germany has some very silly laws.

The wasp protection one gets broken all the time for obvious reasons.

Re:Caterpillar offers phone with built-in FLIR camera by linmob on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @01:42AM (#33891390)
Re:Caterpillar offers phone with built-in FLIR camera by hoseja on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @02:49AM (#33891756)
I've come around on wasps. They just do their thing. You got stung? Don't tread on them.
Re:Caterpillar offers phone with built-in FLIR camera by yetihehe on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @03:24AM (#33891972)
Sometimes wasps have other ideas about "treading on them" like "You are near and made a sudden move, you are threat". It gets worse when you are allergic to wasps. I've worked near a place where transport company cleaned their syrup and milk carrying trailers, so we sometimes had a lot of wasps and one of coworkers had to constantly have adrenaline with him. If he got stung and couldn't do it himself, we were trained on how to jab him and call ambulance.
Re:Caterpillar offers phone with built-in FLIR camera by InitialLastName on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @10:32AM (#33895498)
> one of coworkers had to constantly have adrenaline with him. If he got stung and couldn't do it himself, we were trained on how to jab him and call ambulance.

FWIW, this bit is true of everyone I've known who was aware of an anaphylactic allergy, independent of their likelihood of exposure to the allergen. "Carry an EpiPen, know how to use it, make sure some of the people around you are aware of your allergy and know how to handle a reaction" is a very light-weight and reliable solution to "something relatively common could easily kill me".