Inconspicuous-looking device sucks wasps to Iain Banks-style captivity, doom
An innocuous but mysterious pipe coils from the neighbor's roof, few clues offered as to its purpose. An overflow pipe? Surely not. A vent, maybe? The sinister truth is that your quiet, respectable neighbor has installed a wasp sucking machine.
I happened to have this incredibly powerful blower that I bought at a surplus store thinking I might use it for a pipe organ, but never used. Given this opportunity, and the blower, I decided to build a dedicated 'wasp sucking machine'.The blower and 1/3 hp motor came as one unit, connected together with a flatbelt. I know, the shopvacs are supposed to have 5 horsepower, but they don't suck much harder than this unit, and they just don't last. The box has a glass lid so you can see the status of the catch, and only bug screen for a 'filter' so there isn't much to resist the flow of air. A piece of metal or cardboard can be slid in a gap where the hose connects to seal off the box, and the box just sits on top of the intake spout for the blower, so it can easily be removed from the machine for purposes of showing off one's catch.
Here's an example of its yield:
To the sacrifice poles!
Wasp sucking machine [Mattias Wandel via Make]
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You are, of course, aware that wasps play an essential role in pest control?
"Wasps are critically important in natural biocontrol. Almost every pest insect species has at least one wasp species that is a predator or parasite upon it. Parasitic wasps are also increasingly used in agricultural pest control as they have little impact on crops."
Reducing the local wasp population in this way just to keep them out of your supersized Coke will most likely result in a rise in the local pest population, which means gardeners will need to use more chemical pesticides, which means - well, we all know where this is going, right?
The ingenious ways that people devise to fuck up their environment rather than enhance it never cease to disappoint me.
Kenneth, that would be a totally awesome self-righteous screed if it wasn't obvious the wasps who were captured here were living in some dude's roof.
Kenneth, ordinarily, I'd happily go all self-righteous eco-snob along with you, but these are wasps. Wasps are pure evil. Wasps must die.
Wasps really are pure evil.
I'm usually designated bug squasher in my household, but wasps are different. They were getting into my apartment, and one night as I went to put my glasses on my nightstand I put my hand on top of one. Not the most relaxing thing before bed. One of my roommates had to kill it for me.
I'm going to have nightmares about that box of wasps tonight.
Wasps must die.
Especially these.
(Two inches long. Stingers a third of an inch long. One of the most painful venoms in the insect kingdom. Aggressive ...)
Why does the story fail to mention the reason for so many wasps in the first place? It would go a long way towards me not thinking of this gentleman as completely batshit insane.
Either way I'd want nothing to do with a box of wasps, dead or not. guh.
Wasps ARE pests. At least, when they've nested anywhere near me or my stuff.
I would think those wasps contained would be worth money to someone.
Not to get all Katie Couric on you or anything but those look like yellow jackets, or hornets we called them. Are those considered wasps too?
#6, I'll see your Tarantula Hawk and raise you an
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_giant_hornet
@Lava: Hornets are not yellowjackets (same subfamily, different genus). They're all types of wasps.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vespidae
Hmm, they may be yellowjackets, but they look to me like paper wasps. Given he's in Germany (right?), this would make sense:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polistes_dominula
Yellowjackets are an important predator of pest insects, but they get no sympathy from me. I dropped a mower wheel in a nest entrance once and ended up with 17 stings and a lot of trauma. F* them!
Paper wasps aren't nearly as aggressive.
Oh, and: that is one hell of a haul of wasps there. Totally creepin' me out.
@6 & 11 -- not as bad, but still prettybig...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada_killer
The major predator of yellowjackets in our area is skunks. The skunks dig through the nests, which are entirely underground, eating the paper, the larvae, and the adult bees while ignoring the fact that they are getting their little faces stung all to shit. It takes a couple of days for a skunk to consume a big nest, but they just gorge away at it until it's done.
--Charlie
Ingenious design. And that box could double as a gas chamber when it gets full!
I would think those wasps contained would be worth money to someone.
If you eat a wasp it'll
put you in the hospital.
KILL THE JASPERS!
@6, 11, 15: Pffft. Call those big? *This* is a big wasp: http://tinyurl.com/668rkg
BRING FORTH THE HOLY HAND GRENADE!
@#11, Lynch, purveyor of Asian Giant Hornet:
Damn you, that set my heart racing. I hope I forget about that before I try and go to sleep tonight, you bastard. :)
@#20, Kenneth: broken link.
speaking of the Asian Giant Hornet...
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=JDSf3Kshq1M&feature=related
speaking of the Asian Giant Hornet...
I was picking up some bags of green coffee in NYC over the summer, and I have no doubt I saw one of these flying around the terminal.
I pray this guy doesn't have regular need for a Hornet box vacuum.
For an internet comments thread, I have to say that the no-less-than-quadruple-entendre potential of the phrase "WASP SUCKER" is being severely underutilized.
Wasp Salad!
Needs a wax pit. and a microwave box. and a tunnel of electricity. and,and waitaminnit what stings wasps?
I'm hyperventilating just looking at that box.
Good God! I HATE flying things with stingers!! We have Cicada Killers AND Tarantula Hawks where I'm at... at least the Tarantula Hawks are pretty easy going. I do have a question though: why do I personally always seem to draw the attention of every bee and wasp in the vicinity? I could be in a large crowd of people, but the trash-bees only want to check me out (much to the amusement of my friends). Am I wearing too much naturally enticing hygiene products? I really want to blame Tom's Natural deodorant. XD
Now to create a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant capture box. Or just make the doors on Crate and Barrel go only in.
If you dance around shrieking and flailing, a bee or wasp will correctly classify you as a danger to the hive. And if one of them tags you with the threat-to-the-hive marker pheromone, all the rest will react to that.
In late autumn, though, all bets are off with the yellowjackets. The worker/warriors have all been kicked out of the hive to fend for themselves - they have already served their purpose for the year and will die in the first heavy frost - so they are completely batshit insane. Really, their tiny minds are broken. This is specific to yellowjackets, though, honeybees and hornets aren't like that.
Even with crazy yellowjackets you can stand motionless in a swarm and you're unlikely to be harmed, unless you've already been tagged as a threat. Best to have your fingers in your ears and you mustn't flinch when one of them crawls up your pant-leg and starts roaming about on your scrotum, good luck with that part.
I say that if this looks like a gas chamber for wasps, you are sorely lacking in imagination.
Just wrap it in brown paper and mail it to someone you dislike. Cheaper than raid, and solves two problems at once.
well where do i start. i was disowned by my parents for having a fetish towards wasps. it started on a dry summers afternoon in the dales. i was walking the dogs with my dad and this strange object appeared from nowhere with honey all over his ears. i didnt even realise they had ears. anyway, what did my head in the most was he was riding an old bike of mine which my dad made me and my brother for xmas. i loved that god damn bike. so thats when i decided to start a litlle group called the wasp salad crew. why???? outta respect!! im now quite partial to munching on them as long as they've been destung and deflead and had a darn good wash. nothing worse than a dirty 1. ive had so many of these dirty 1's. i may as well eat a sardines minge. and while im on the subject, im fighting for the wasp salad crew against the beeeeeehave urself crooners. if you would like to join my army then click the ring king slywasp..........07766485534. for any othere enquiries call queen wasp union big wig 07961962878