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Bald-Faced Hornets Can Remember Human Faces
Some wild facts about wasps and my asshole neighbor
On a balmy Wednesday in July, I got out the ol’ lawnmower and filled her up with petrol. In the US we call it gasoline, but I’ve always been a wannabe Brit. Bollocks, I know.
I set off with the mower to tame the wilderness that was my weed-infested lawn. I started where I always do, and it’s upsetting how much of a rut I’m in — quite literally — as the mower wheels have worn ruts into the lawn because I mow in almost exactly the same pattern every time. I try to change, but change is hard. A few years ago I attempted a diagonal pattern, but things went south. My lines were crooked and it didn’t look at all like the fairways at Pebble Beach I had imagined. I couldn’t sleep for weeks.
A small Japanese maple grows peacefully on the side of the house where nobody ever has any reason to be. I mow concentric squares around it until I get close, then duck under the stubby little branches. I bumped the trunk with the mower and a bunch of horseflies took off around the tree.
I stood back and thought, Boy, that’s weird. I‘ve never seen horseflies swarm like that before.
That is because they were not horseflies. They were black and buzzy, hence my cursory identification. Upon closer inspection, these flies had interesting white markings on them. And also they were hornets and did not look like flies at all.
I backed slowly away from the Japanese maple and shut off the mower. The swarm didn’t come after me, so I was emboldened to go in for a closer look.
The “flies” were hornets that had white war paint on them. They looked like hornets would look if they wore little glow-in-the-dark skeleton pajamas. I snapped a quick picture and let Google Lens take the reigns, and it didn’t take long for the results to come in. These little friendlies were known as Bald-Faced Hornets.
Terms like “aggressively defensive”, “painful” and “hire a professional” peppered the results.
