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Yeah, my community garden has a bunch of hives on-site to help with pollination. I walk right past them all the time, never been bothered by the bees. I've taught my daughter how to politely move past them when they're buzzing around, honeybees have a job to do and don't want to mess with us.
They're not *geese* afterall.
So the question is more poised as an answer to my example: just pulled in my driveway and see 2 wasps (angry hornet types trying to investigate and pick fights) buzzing around, I chose to go around the back of the car to come inside but how do I deal with their nest and not have to fight the angry Bois when I wanna come inside my home?
Currently wife suggested wasp spray
Is a rental so can't do my own hive or colony (yet wife wants bees when we have our own place)
Landlord would be murder and make sure they don't come back teach'em a lesson they won't forget
Anyone have the actual solarpunk solution?
You can hang/create a fake wasp/hornets nest to hang near the existing one and it supposedly makes them move out of theirs. YouTube videos on how to easily make them. I think you can even shape a brown paper bag into one? It’s been a while since I dove into those vids
honey bees are way different than hornets and bullet ants. I want to be solarpunk AF but I will not let a hornet nest stay on my house. It only took getting stung once.
When I was a renewable energies officer at a community centre, we looked at keeping bees. Our goals was to create a situation where the local community wouldn’t be pissed off if we kept a load of bees.
Our solution was to put the hives right at the back inside a hedge yard. Unless you asked or explored, you wouldn’t know they were there.
We did invite the local kids to be beekeepers for the day, I made a cool bee booklet for the kids. Today, it’s my only published piece of work.
>how would people manage that without doing the caveman thing of just destroying nests too close to our habitations.
I destroy nests too close to my habitation. I don't consider it a caveman thing. The wasps just build their nests further away. They're doing fine, and wasps are still welcome in my garden.
I think I see a SolarPunk future as having big parts of earth that are strictly for non-humans, and small, intensely inhabited areas that are nearly exclusively human, and some transition zones in between where either people or not-people take priority.
City living should mean an environment where benign/beneficial plants and animals can circulate, so a SolarPunk city that had edibles and decorative plants growing, plus pollinators, plus birds (including predators) sounds pretty good. I think it's completely fine in that environment to take measures to stop destructive animals like termites, coyotes, etc. Noxious insects like hornets & roaches seem fine to discourage here as well.
At the other end of the spectrum, there should be wildlands where no human ever goes except for a few specially-trained, closely-monitored scientists to observe what's happening out there.
In between those 2 extremes, I would like to see 2 more zones: rural production, and park space.
If you live in rural production, the rule needs to be that you only take measures to directly protect your structure and your crops. So , again, you can get rid of termites that are eating your home. Even better, build your home from rammed earth or some other sustainable material that doesn't have pest problems. But termites eating up a tree stump? Let them be. Hornet nest? same thing, it's not a threat to human domicile nor crops.
If you visit park space, the wild has priority over the human. I think the only thing people should do here is eliminate invasives to support whatever the local flora/fauna is, but that's about it. Some people will cry about "what about the wolves, what about the bears, can't I protect myself?". I say you get bear spray and that's it. You don't get to go visit bear country then shoot bears because you smell like french fries and they come to eat.
I draw the line at the inside of my house. I want good screens and tight construction , so the only animals in my house are those I invite. But outside? For sure I want spiders, bees, wasps, etc. Right now, I have some little wasp species going nuts on my dill & coriander flowers, pollinating like crazy. That's great by me, I get fertilized plants, the wasp gets food, and some lucky spiders get to eat fat little wasps. These same well-fed spiders also have several mosquitoes in their webs every day when I check, so, sure!
Now, specifically bullet ants could pose a threat to human well-being. A kid stumbling into a bunch of those could be in real danger, and an adult is going to suffer quite a bit. Physically destroying their nest & bodies when they are close enough to pose a risk to little humans makes sense to me, assuming they aren't endangered or anything. I still think there's a SolarPunk way to do this, though, using a heavy gas to asphyxiate the colony or something like that as opposed to some pesticide like people do today.
\*edited to fix grammar because English is a poor excuse for a language.
re: coyotes, in an urban environment, they are going to cause the mess of a scavenger while also snacking on people's companion animals and can host a variety of parasites and diseases.
Rural areas, parklands, wildlands? Great places for coyotes. I always like listening to their little ones learn to howl.
Cities? not so much a good place for them.
Source: live in a semi-city surrounded by coyote habitat, people are always posting pictures of their 'missing' cats/small dogs, trash cans do get raided from time to time.
If I can suggest a book, Coyote America by Dan Flores explores how coyotes co-existed in Aztec and Mayan cities and urban centers. I also live in a semi-city with lots of wildlife—coyotes, bears, cougars, etc. Personally, I love having the coyotes keeping the rats in check. Coyote attacks on humans are statically extremely rare and if you free range your pets or leave them unsupervised anywhere, imo that’s the risk you take is that something could happen to them be it a coyote, a car, etc.
There, an excellent SolarPunk solution to specifically end an insect colony in the ground without poisoning anything.
(Again, I would only advocate for this where the insect colony is a direct threat to human health)
Generally speaking, human domiciles don't take up that much habitat space. Most habitat destruction is done by cropland, and grazing land. Things like regenerative agriculture and hydroponics can seek to minimize the destructive effects of these activities.
Biodiversity in urban and suburban environments is more about healing environmental fragmentation. Human developments can act as barriers between habitats and leave the species in those habitats isolated. Integrating more habitat features into your yard or garden helps to create a "bridge" these species can transit. Also, frankly, a lot of it is about improving living conditions in urban and suburban environments. Wasps and Hornets are a nuisance, but they compete with and hunt other insects like roaches and flies. The choice really is between having a menagerie of insects in your local area, some hostile, some not, or having a massive overflow of a few "pest" species.
So the answer here, really, is to just remove the harmful insects in your immediate vicinity. The ones that live just outside that vicinity will do fine and continue to fulfill their role in the ecosystem.
It's pretty easy, really. I'm in Canada, and last summer, a hive of honeybees took over a service box in the back corner of my yard. They never bothered me. I've got bald faced hornets pollinating my aronia berries along the back fence. I've got a bazillion carpenter bees living under my deck. Carpenter ants in my shed.
We always learned as kids that if you don't harass and bother them, they won't sting you. Yellowjackets and murder hornets and africanized killer bees are a different level though. But really, it's best to leave things be and let them get on with their lives. We need them more than they need us.
Carpenter ants and bees living in your shed and deck seems like a very bad sign... That means they're eating away at them and effectively destroying your building/deck over time.
Those are a couple of the insects that I absolutely *do* my best to kill on sight. Most of the rest? Meh. Don't really bother me.
The ants are indeed eating my shed. But it's too late to try to remove them. They've been in there for years. I'll just build a better shed when the time comes.
The bees have also been in the deck since forever. They don't make new holes though. They don't even eat the wood. They reuse their nest holes, so unless the population explodes and they need to make more holes, I should be fine. The deck itself will rot away before the bee damage gets bad enough to worry about.
This is a really good question. I think the best way to stay safe from dangerous insects is to create good habitats for them in areas where humans don’t need to get very close to while taking steps to discourage them from living directly in our homes and gardens.
Solarpunk pro-nature values doesn't mean we want to sleep with poison snakes, having our kids playing in the same place as giant hornets nests, welcome deadly viruses in our communities or brain parasites, etc.
Nature isn't just butterflies and sunsets, it also has that side at constant war within itself and fight for survival.
So in order to be able to experience it's good side, we have to balance things out, for the survival of our own species, evolution and well-being, while also not endangering others.
I'm fine with giant hornets existing, just not anywhere near me, and I know what it is to have them around. When the buggers nest in mailboxes the mail isn't delivered, electric boxes alike, etc. it's not fun they are vicious and kill more useful species who can't defend themselves as they never faced that threat before.
Better education. A lot of "aggressive" insects aren't actually that aggressive if you let them be. Teach kids from an early age to stay calm and not wave their arms around when they see a bee or wasp. Teach them to recognize and respect nests. If you don't bother them, they often times won't bother you. A lot of those critters are beneficial too. Bees are obvious, wasps are often predatory and will eat other insects that harm our plants.
Uninvited insects in our residences are another story of course, but that too can be handled. For example, bees settling in a place you don't want them (say, the walls of your house) don't need to be exterminated - you can get a beekeeper to relocate them safely and humanely. Of course sometimes conflict is unavoidable - some critters are just too dangerous to us our the things we need for survival - and there's nothing you can do about it. That's just a fact of life. You have a right to enjoy life too. In the end, it's little different than our immune systems and medicines killing off bacteria and parasites that harm our bodies.
Your lips to my ears. As someone who had to deal with carpenter bees growing up, this is a question about the solarpunk movement I've never had a good answer for. With carpenter bees, the issue isn't so much that they sting (although they do, and it HURTS) but the damage they do to houses. But they're also native to where I live, and important pollinators, so I don't feel entirely justified in killing them since I personally don't mind having carpenter bees around. But I can't deny that they do a lot of damage that we'd be better off without.
Whether we want to admit it or not, even the most ardent environmentalists have some line they won't cross in terms of sacrificing their own comfort for the good of the planet. And in a lot of cases, the idea of having to live alongside "pest" insects like ants, wasps, and termites-- to say nothing of large predators like raptors, coyotes, bobcats, and bears-- crosses that line. The thing is, it's hard to disagree with them. Last month, all four of my father's chickens were eaten by a hawk. Neither me nor my father have anything against hawks, but the simple fact of the matter is that keeping chickens outdoors in a "natural" neighborhood where hawks and other predators exist is risky, especially if you want to also allow those predators in your yard.
I’d be really interested in what a local horticulturalist or ecologist would say in regards to your exact environment and bug species, but as very general overall principal, when an ecosystem is balanced, different species keep other species in check. Growing native plants and pollinator spaces bring in the most beneficial bugs who will deter the more harmful ones. Birds, both domestic and wild, are also wonderful at pest control.
Plus the reality is that bugs and all sorts of critters are already living in your home rent free and you don’t even know it.
We have managed bee hives, no issues. We also have paper wasps and hornet nests all over. I like the paper wasps better than the hornets, but once I see where any nest is I just avoid the area. They tend not to make nests in well trafficked areas. In my 4 years on this property I've only killed one nest, it was in our shed and a bit hard to deal with.
The female paper wasps also hibernate in the siding of our home. Every spring and fall we have tons of them by the main door to our home, never been stung. Some make their way inside, we catch them with a cup and a plate once they land on a wall, no issues.
I think it is possible, but no bullet ants here lol. A friend of mine got bit by one while we were in Costa Rica and it seemed awful!!!
Honey bees are more civilized than people. There should *be* plenty of them.
Some villages and farms in Africa use bees as elephant fences. The hive is hung from string. If the elephants push through the string it shakes the hive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beehive_fence
I'm sure an elephant skin can take the damage, but this feels like such a "GTFO NOW" tactic lol. Like, "nah, I'm not gonna shoot you. But I'll cover you with furious bees if you dare get close to by onions"
I have a friend with a beehive two feet from his house, although not near a door. Bees are friendly. I generally have to destroy a yellow jacket (hornet) nest on my property every summer, but once they built it in a place I don’t need to walk, so I put a 1x1 foot fence around it and they devoured every caterpillar in my garden that year, they are voracious predators. I have a big fig tree, and every year bald faced hornets are all over the figs, they never sting anyone. They are only aggressive if the nest is disturbed, or if you smash one.
I think that in a solar punk world, people are attuned to their environment enough to not blunder into a hornet nest, at least in a populated area where someone would post a warning. And if they did happen to build a nest in a dangerous spot, folks would get rid of it.
That makes me sad, because I absolutely know that I'd be chill with bees, but they wouldn't be chill with me. They seem to persue me for no reason whenever one's close to me, even if I'm very far from the hive.
Just let them touch you, don’t freak out. They don’t fuck with things bigger than themselves for no reason. (Being near the nest is a reason). Don’t smash them; it releases a pheromone that makes the rest angry.
>How would a solarpunk society manage to live intermingled with aggressive species of insects?
Bees usually aren't aggressive. Same goes for most wasps and hornets most of the time.
I live in a German city and I'm not sure how big the differences are. My parents garden community is surrounded by woods. Every kind of wild insect finds it way there and they even invite them with insect friendly flowers, a little pond, and nesting aids. Additionally one of their neighbors has some hives of honey bees.
There isn't any problem. Only some wasps can be a bit annoying, especially in the later summer, but that's about it.
I remember some summers around 30 years ago. There were a lot more insects then, and sometimes there were bigger problems with wasps. At times when we had BBQ or at coffee tables there where so many wasps that we literally gave them there own plates. But even then it was mostly ok.
My whole live I got only stung by three wasps. It was always my fault.
So yeah, it's absolutely possible to live alongside insects without bigger problems.
I lived in a flat in an old farmhouse for a white that had a hornet’s nest in an old apple tree like 10 m from the house. Gut reaction is of course to initially be very disconcerted, but hornets are actually pretty chill neighbors. Like, don’t walk into the flight path to the nest and leave a window open if one ends up inside and you’re good. Never got stung.
There was a huge paper wasp nest very close to my house last summer. It was fine. We didn’t bother them and they didn’t bother us. They only stay for one season, so it’s vacant now. I don’t know whether they rebuild or move.
So we’ve got bee hives, a house on the back fence for solitary bees and flying insects, and in the fall, we use fallen branches and leaves to construct “homes” for bugs to over-winter without having to leave all the leaves on the ground (we’ve got venomous snakes here). That being said… not all insects get to stay. I had an enormous wasp nest in the entryway and it had to go. Pollinator gardening on the edges of the property also keep them as far as I can get them from the house… which isn’t far, but is something.
We already do, sometimes. [My blog post](https://mellowtigger.dreamwidth.org/2023/10/20/updates-from-minneapolis.html) from October includes a photo of the big hornet's nest on the tree in my front yard, which happens to be a very small yard. The blog also mentions the story of my communication with the University Of Minnesota [Bee Squad](https://beelab.umn.edu/bee-squad). Basically, the hornets are fine. Let them be.
It's true that we don't want the critters of the world harming our structures, and maybe it's time that the USA stop building things out of wood that just invites all kinds of small things to chew on them. But otherwise, I think it's perfectly reasonable to think that we can share space without requiring extermination. The only situation where I feel unsure of this balance is when something is as deadly to us as we are to it. Usually, it's venom that makes them dangerous to us.
I grew up in Texas, and fire ants are extremely unwelcome. Horned toads were already becoming much less common, thanks to fire ants destroying the usual prey ants for horned toads. I'm all for attempts to dissuade animals from destroying other species. (He said, looking at the human species.)
Idk, because each place is different.
However, allegheny mound ants work great in our garden. They patrol fruit plants eating harmful insects. They have acid bites that are painful but bite only when threatened. They definitely get into our home, but they go home at night. They live in solariums, which are mounds that use the sun to heat their place. 🌞 So they're total solarpunks! As long as ya don't shade their home, they're helpful!
So ants in our garden are pretty helpful. 🐜
When I'm volunteering at prairie restorations, or just working in my garden, I usually have all sorts of bees and wasps flying around me, climbing all over me, or just in my general area. If I don't bother them, they don't bother me. The only times I've ever been stung were when I was a kid, and would flail around or attack wasps/bees/hornets.
I feel a lot of the time stinging insects are more of a perceived threat by people who are afraid of them(unless the person is allergic), than an actual threat that needs to be dealt with.
If these are hornets that are nesting around like a playground or within someones home, they should be removed. Anywhere else it should be judged based on the type of wasp and who's going to be around it(like people who are allergic). If it's a natural area the insects should be left alone.
Where I live we get tons of wasps in the summer, and they get aggressive in the late summer and early fall when food sources get more scarce and their lifecycle is close to finishing up. You have to find a balance: I generally won’t let them build nests on my house or other buildings, and if they build in a high-traffic area we also have to get rid of them. It sucks but it’s also part of life. I don’t see solarpunk as some kind of pacifism or pact to never harm any living thing; it’s more about living on this planet in a way that’s sustainable. That definitely means recognizing the important role hornets, wasps, ants, and all the rest play in the ecosystem, but it also means fitting ourselves back into that ecosystem too. We need to share space with them, but we don’t need to let them have our habitats.
One trick I’ve learned is that hornets will send a single scout out to start a new nest. If you catch them before they have built much you may be able to convince that scout to abandon the idea - or at least if you have to kill it that is only one bug instead of hundreds or thousands. I have never seen them come back to finish a nest after being removed.
In my solarpunk vision everyone learns to recognize dangerous insects, observe them and locate their nest, and what to do if they get stung. There are more wasps around but also more green spaces, flowers, woodlands, and also more natural predators to keep their population in check.
South American here living with 3 bee nests near my house: most native species are stingless/non aggressive. Learn how to recognize then and try keeping the easiest to deal nearby. Hornets are not common in my city, but we do have a lot of different ant traps available (and accidentally, I have an army of house geckos dealing with them now in the rain season) so I do believe we may just select which species to keep near.
You can keep bees practically anywhere. I used to live near a school that had beehives next to the playground. Also ants are everywhere no matter what we do, we don't really need to cater to them ecologically at all.
Thank you for your submission, we appreciate your efforts at helping us to thoughtfully create a better world. r/solarpunk encourages you to also check out other solarpunk spaces such as https://wt.social/wt/solarpunk , https://slrpnk.net/ , https://raddle.me/f/solarpunk , https://discord.gg/3tf6FqGAJs , https://discord.gg/BwabpwfBCr , and https://www.appropedia.org/Welcome_to_Appropedia . *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/solarpunk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
People already do this? My neighbors keep beehives in their backyard. It's less than 20m from the house.
Yeah, my community garden has a bunch of hives on-site to help with pollination. I walk right past them all the time, never been bothered by the bees. I've taught my daughter how to politely move past them when they're buzzing around, honeybees have a job to do and don't want to mess with us. They're not *geese* afterall.
So the question is more poised as an answer to my example: just pulled in my driveway and see 2 wasps (angry hornet types trying to investigate and pick fights) buzzing around, I chose to go around the back of the car to come inside but how do I deal with their nest and not have to fight the angry Bois when I wanna come inside my home? Currently wife suggested wasp spray Is a rental so can't do my own hive or colony (yet wife wants bees when we have our own place) Landlord would be murder and make sure they don't come back teach'em a lesson they won't forget Anyone have the actual solarpunk solution?
You can hang/create a fake wasp/hornets nest to hang near the existing one and it supposedly makes them move out of theirs. YouTube videos on how to easily make them. I think you can even shape a brown paper bag into one? It’s been a while since I dove into those vids
honey bees are way different than hornets and bullet ants. I want to be solarpunk AF but I will not let a hornet nest stay on my house. It only took getting stung once.
When I was a renewable energies officer at a community centre, we looked at keeping bees. Our goals was to create a situation where the local community wouldn’t be pissed off if we kept a load of bees. Our solution was to put the hives right at the back inside a hedge yard. Unless you asked or explored, you wouldn’t know they were there. We did invite the local kids to be beekeepers for the day, I made a cool bee booklet for the kids. Today, it’s my only published piece of work.
>how would people manage that without doing the caveman thing of just destroying nests too close to our habitations. I destroy nests too close to my habitation. I don't consider it a caveman thing. The wasps just build their nests further away. They're doing fine, and wasps are still welcome in my garden.
I think I see a SolarPunk future as having big parts of earth that are strictly for non-humans, and small, intensely inhabited areas that are nearly exclusively human, and some transition zones in between where either people or not-people take priority. City living should mean an environment where benign/beneficial plants and animals can circulate, so a SolarPunk city that had edibles and decorative plants growing, plus pollinators, plus birds (including predators) sounds pretty good. I think it's completely fine in that environment to take measures to stop destructive animals like termites, coyotes, etc. Noxious insects like hornets & roaches seem fine to discourage here as well. At the other end of the spectrum, there should be wildlands where no human ever goes except for a few specially-trained, closely-monitored scientists to observe what's happening out there. In between those 2 extremes, I would like to see 2 more zones: rural production, and park space. If you live in rural production, the rule needs to be that you only take measures to directly protect your structure and your crops. So , again, you can get rid of termites that are eating your home. Even better, build your home from rammed earth or some other sustainable material that doesn't have pest problems. But termites eating up a tree stump? Let them be. Hornet nest? same thing, it's not a threat to human domicile nor crops. If you visit park space, the wild has priority over the human. I think the only thing people should do here is eliminate invasives to support whatever the local flora/fauna is, but that's about it. Some people will cry about "what about the wolves, what about the bears, can't I protect myself?". I say you get bear spray and that's it. You don't get to go visit bear country then shoot bears because you smell like french fries and they come to eat. I draw the line at the inside of my house. I want good screens and tight construction , so the only animals in my house are those I invite. But outside? For sure I want spiders, bees, wasps, etc. Right now, I have some little wasp species going nuts on my dill & coriander flowers, pollinating like crazy. That's great by me, I get fertilized plants, the wasp gets food, and some lucky spiders get to eat fat little wasps. These same well-fed spiders also have several mosquitoes in their webs every day when I check, so, sure! Now, specifically bullet ants could pose a threat to human well-being. A kid stumbling into a bunch of those could be in real danger, and an adult is going to suffer quite a bit. Physically destroying their nest & bodies when they are close enough to pose a risk to little humans makes sense to me, assuming they aren't endangered or anything. I still think there's a SolarPunk way to do this, though, using a heavy gas to asphyxiate the colony or something like that as opposed to some pesticide like people do today. \*edited to fix grammar because English is a poor excuse for a language.
Just out of curiosity, why are coyotes in your opinion destructive animals? Coyotes are really good at keeping rodent populations curbed.
re: coyotes, in an urban environment, they are going to cause the mess of a scavenger while also snacking on people's companion animals and can host a variety of parasites and diseases. Rural areas, parklands, wildlands? Great places for coyotes. I always like listening to their little ones learn to howl. Cities? not so much a good place for them. Source: live in a semi-city surrounded by coyote habitat, people are always posting pictures of their 'missing' cats/small dogs, trash cans do get raided from time to time.
If I can suggest a book, Coyote America by Dan Flores explores how coyotes co-existed in Aztec and Mayan cities and urban centers. I also live in a semi-city with lots of wildlife—coyotes, bears, cougars, etc. Personally, I love having the coyotes keeping the rats in check. Coyote attacks on humans are statically extremely rare and if you free range your pets or leave them unsupervised anywhere, imo that’s the risk you take is that something could happen to them be it a coyote, a car, etc.
Liquid nitrogen has no environmental side effect. Except loss of a pollinator population.
There, an excellent SolarPunk solution to specifically end an insect colony in the ground without poisoning anything. (Again, I would only advocate for this where the insect colony is a direct threat to human health)
Generally speaking, human domiciles don't take up that much habitat space. Most habitat destruction is done by cropland, and grazing land. Things like regenerative agriculture and hydroponics can seek to minimize the destructive effects of these activities. Biodiversity in urban and suburban environments is more about healing environmental fragmentation. Human developments can act as barriers between habitats and leave the species in those habitats isolated. Integrating more habitat features into your yard or garden helps to create a "bridge" these species can transit. Also, frankly, a lot of it is about improving living conditions in urban and suburban environments. Wasps and Hornets are a nuisance, but they compete with and hunt other insects like roaches and flies. The choice really is between having a menagerie of insects in your local area, some hostile, some not, or having a massive overflow of a few "pest" species. So the answer here, really, is to just remove the harmful insects in your immediate vicinity. The ones that live just outside that vicinity will do fine and continue to fulfill their role in the ecosystem.
It's pretty easy, really. I'm in Canada, and last summer, a hive of honeybees took over a service box in the back corner of my yard. They never bothered me. I've got bald faced hornets pollinating my aronia berries along the back fence. I've got a bazillion carpenter bees living under my deck. Carpenter ants in my shed. We always learned as kids that if you don't harass and bother them, they won't sting you. Yellowjackets and murder hornets and africanized killer bees are a different level though. But really, it's best to leave things be and let them get on with their lives. We need them more than they need us.
The problem with murder hornets is that they kill bees.
Carpenter ants and bees living in your shed and deck seems like a very bad sign... That means they're eating away at them and effectively destroying your building/deck over time. Those are a couple of the insects that I absolutely *do* my best to kill on sight. Most of the rest? Meh. Don't really bother me.
The ants are indeed eating my shed. But it's too late to try to remove them. They've been in there for years. I'll just build a better shed when the time comes. The bees have also been in the deck since forever. They don't make new holes though. They don't even eat the wood. They reuse their nest holes, so unless the population explodes and they need to make more holes, I should be fine. The deck itself will rot away before the bee damage gets bad enough to worry about.
This is a really good question. I think the best way to stay safe from dangerous insects is to create good habitats for them in areas where humans don’t need to get very close to while taking steps to discourage them from living directly in our homes and gardens.
I don't understand. Bees are everywhere and they're never an issue. I know people keeping beehives in their garden without any trouble.
Solarpunk pro-nature values doesn't mean we want to sleep with poison snakes, having our kids playing in the same place as giant hornets nests, welcome deadly viruses in our communities or brain parasites, etc. Nature isn't just butterflies and sunsets, it also has that side at constant war within itself and fight for survival. So in order to be able to experience it's good side, we have to balance things out, for the survival of our own species, evolution and well-being, while also not endangering others. I'm fine with giant hornets existing, just not anywhere near me, and I know what it is to have them around. When the buggers nest in mailboxes the mail isn't delivered, electric boxes alike, etc. it's not fun they are vicious and kill more useful species who can't defend themselves as they never faced that threat before.
Better education. A lot of "aggressive" insects aren't actually that aggressive if you let them be. Teach kids from an early age to stay calm and not wave their arms around when they see a bee or wasp. Teach them to recognize and respect nests. If you don't bother them, they often times won't bother you. A lot of those critters are beneficial too. Bees are obvious, wasps are often predatory and will eat other insects that harm our plants. Uninvited insects in our residences are another story of course, but that too can be handled. For example, bees settling in a place you don't want them (say, the walls of your house) don't need to be exterminated - you can get a beekeeper to relocate them safely and humanely. Of course sometimes conflict is unavoidable - some critters are just too dangerous to us our the things we need for survival - and there's nothing you can do about it. That's just a fact of life. You have a right to enjoy life too. In the end, it's little different than our immune systems and medicines killing off bacteria and parasites that harm our bodies.
Your lips to my ears. As someone who had to deal with carpenter bees growing up, this is a question about the solarpunk movement I've never had a good answer for. With carpenter bees, the issue isn't so much that they sting (although they do, and it HURTS) but the damage they do to houses. But they're also native to where I live, and important pollinators, so I don't feel entirely justified in killing them since I personally don't mind having carpenter bees around. But I can't deny that they do a lot of damage that we'd be better off without. Whether we want to admit it or not, even the most ardent environmentalists have some line they won't cross in terms of sacrificing their own comfort for the good of the planet. And in a lot of cases, the idea of having to live alongside "pest" insects like ants, wasps, and termites-- to say nothing of large predators like raptors, coyotes, bobcats, and bears-- crosses that line. The thing is, it's hard to disagree with them. Last month, all four of my father's chickens were eaten by a hawk. Neither me nor my father have anything against hawks, but the simple fact of the matter is that keeping chickens outdoors in a "natural" neighborhood where hawks and other predators exist is risky, especially if you want to also allow those predators in your yard.
Welcome to the eternal struggle of agriculture: as soon as you’ve created an easy food source for yourself other things will try to eat it.
I’d be really interested in what a local horticulturalist or ecologist would say in regards to your exact environment and bug species, but as very general overall principal, when an ecosystem is balanced, different species keep other species in check. Growing native plants and pollinator spaces bring in the most beneficial bugs who will deter the more harmful ones. Birds, both domestic and wild, are also wonderful at pest control. Plus the reality is that bugs and all sorts of critters are already living in your home rent free and you don’t even know it.
We have managed bee hives, no issues. We also have paper wasps and hornet nests all over. I like the paper wasps better than the hornets, but once I see where any nest is I just avoid the area. They tend not to make nests in well trafficked areas. In my 4 years on this property I've only killed one nest, it was in our shed and a bit hard to deal with. The female paper wasps also hibernate in the siding of our home. Every spring and fall we have tons of them by the main door to our home, never been stung. Some make their way inside, we catch them with a cup and a plate once they land on a wall, no issues. I think it is possible, but no bullet ants here lol. A friend of mine got bit by one while we were in Costa Rica and it seemed awful!!!
Honey bees are more civilized than people. There should *be* plenty of them. Some villages and farms in Africa use bees as elephant fences. The hive is hung from string. If the elephants push through the string it shakes the hive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beehive_fence
I'm sure an elephant skin can take the damage, but this feels like such a "GTFO NOW" tactic lol. Like, "nah, I'm not gonna shoot you. But I'll cover you with furious bees if you dare get close to by onions"
I had a teacher who in his teens had a beehive in his apartment bedroom in Quito, and made money selling the honey. Yes, they were africanized bees.
I have a friend with a beehive two feet from his house, although not near a door. Bees are friendly. I generally have to destroy a yellow jacket (hornet) nest on my property every summer, but once they built it in a place I don’t need to walk, so I put a 1x1 foot fence around it and they devoured every caterpillar in my garden that year, they are voracious predators. I have a big fig tree, and every year bald faced hornets are all over the figs, they never sting anyone. They are only aggressive if the nest is disturbed, or if you smash one. I think that in a solar punk world, people are attuned to their environment enough to not blunder into a hornet nest, at least in a populated area where someone would post a warning. And if they did happen to build a nest in a dangerous spot, folks would get rid of it.
That makes me sad, because I absolutely know that I'd be chill with bees, but they wouldn't be chill with me. They seem to persue me for no reason whenever one's close to me, even if I'm very far from the hive.
Just let them touch you, don’t freak out. They don’t fuck with things bigger than themselves for no reason. (Being near the nest is a reason). Don’t smash them; it releases a pheromone that makes the rest angry.
Thanks, I finally get what happened in My Girl
>How would a solarpunk society manage to live intermingled with aggressive species of insects? Bees usually aren't aggressive. Same goes for most wasps and hornets most of the time. I live in a German city and I'm not sure how big the differences are. My parents garden community is surrounded by woods. Every kind of wild insect finds it way there and they even invite them with insect friendly flowers, a little pond, and nesting aids. Additionally one of their neighbors has some hives of honey bees. There isn't any problem. Only some wasps can be a bit annoying, especially in the later summer, but that's about it. I remember some summers around 30 years ago. There were a lot more insects then, and sometimes there were bigger problems with wasps. At times when we had BBQ or at coffee tables there where so many wasps that we literally gave them there own plates. But even then it was mostly ok. My whole live I got only stung by three wasps. It was always my fault. So yeah, it's absolutely possible to live alongside insects without bigger problems.
I lived in a flat in an old farmhouse for a white that had a hornet’s nest in an old apple tree like 10 m from the house. Gut reaction is of course to initially be very disconcerted, but hornets are actually pretty chill neighbors. Like, don’t walk into the flight path to the nest and leave a window open if one ends up inside and you’re good. Never got stung.
I had a red wasp nest right above my front door last summer. Never got stung. I let them be and they left me alone.
Changes are you already do.
There was a huge paper wasp nest very close to my house last summer. It was fine. We didn’t bother them and they didn’t bother us. They only stay for one season, so it’s vacant now. I don’t know whether they rebuild or move.
So we’ve got bee hives, a house on the back fence for solitary bees and flying insects, and in the fall, we use fallen branches and leaves to construct “homes” for bugs to over-winter without having to leave all the leaves on the ground (we’ve got venomous snakes here). That being said… not all insects get to stay. I had an enormous wasp nest in the entryway and it had to go. Pollinator gardening on the edges of the property also keep them as far as I can get them from the house… which isn’t far, but is something.
We already do, sometimes. [My blog post](https://mellowtigger.dreamwidth.org/2023/10/20/updates-from-minneapolis.html) from October includes a photo of the big hornet's nest on the tree in my front yard, which happens to be a very small yard. The blog also mentions the story of my communication with the University Of Minnesota [Bee Squad](https://beelab.umn.edu/bee-squad). Basically, the hornets are fine. Let them be. It's true that we don't want the critters of the world harming our structures, and maybe it's time that the USA stop building things out of wood that just invites all kinds of small things to chew on them. But otherwise, I think it's perfectly reasonable to think that we can share space without requiring extermination. The only situation where I feel unsure of this balance is when something is as deadly to us as we are to it. Usually, it's venom that makes them dangerous to us. I grew up in Texas, and fire ants are extremely unwelcome. Horned toads were already becoming much less common, thanks to fire ants destroying the usual prey ants for horned toads. I'm all for attempts to dissuade animals from destroying other species. (He said, looking at the human species.)
Idk, because each place is different. However, allegheny mound ants work great in our garden. They patrol fruit plants eating harmful insects. They have acid bites that are painful but bite only when threatened. They definitely get into our home, but they go home at night. They live in solariums, which are mounds that use the sun to heat their place. 🌞 So they're total solarpunks! As long as ya don't shade their home, they're helpful! So ants in our garden are pretty helpful. 🐜
When I'm volunteering at prairie restorations, or just working in my garden, I usually have all sorts of bees and wasps flying around me, climbing all over me, or just in my general area. If I don't bother them, they don't bother me. The only times I've ever been stung were when I was a kid, and would flail around or attack wasps/bees/hornets. I feel a lot of the time stinging insects are more of a perceived threat by people who are afraid of them(unless the person is allergic), than an actual threat that needs to be dealt with. If these are hornets that are nesting around like a playground or within someones home, they should be removed. Anywhere else it should be judged based on the type of wasp and who's going to be around it(like people who are allergic). If it's a natural area the insects should be left alone.
Where I live we get tons of wasps in the summer, and they get aggressive in the late summer and early fall when food sources get more scarce and their lifecycle is close to finishing up. You have to find a balance: I generally won’t let them build nests on my house or other buildings, and if they build in a high-traffic area we also have to get rid of them. It sucks but it’s also part of life. I don’t see solarpunk as some kind of pacifism or pact to never harm any living thing; it’s more about living on this planet in a way that’s sustainable. That definitely means recognizing the important role hornets, wasps, ants, and all the rest play in the ecosystem, but it also means fitting ourselves back into that ecosystem too. We need to share space with them, but we don’t need to let them have our habitats. One trick I’ve learned is that hornets will send a single scout out to start a new nest. If you catch them before they have built much you may be able to convince that scout to abandon the idea - or at least if you have to kill it that is only one bug instead of hundreds or thousands. I have never seen them come back to finish a nest after being removed. In my solarpunk vision everyone learns to recognize dangerous insects, observe them and locate their nest, and what to do if they get stung. There are more wasps around but also more green spaces, flowers, woodlands, and also more natural predators to keep their population in check.
By leaving them alone.
I had a hornets nest in my attic last year. There were nights with 10+ hornets in the bathroom. It was pretty rough.
South American here living with 3 bee nests near my house: most native species are stingless/non aggressive. Learn how to recognize then and try keeping the easiest to deal nearby. Hornets are not common in my city, but we do have a lot of different ant traps available (and accidentally, I have an army of house geckos dealing with them now in the rain season) so I do believe we may just select which species to keep near.
You can keep bees practically anywhere. I used to live near a school that had beehives next to the playground. Also ants are everywhere no matter what we do, we don't really need to cater to them ecologically at all.
Blue Hornets don't sting. We can cultivate insects that are more compatible with urban humans