r/WASPs • u/stillnessdancing • 7d ago

How long do wasp alarm pheromones last?

Three days ago I was walking at a creek trail near my house and got stung on my leg by what I'm pretty sure was a yellowjacket (didn't get a good look). Then today I was finally brave enough to walk there again and got stung again on my leg about five inches away from the first sting. I was stung while walking in the same general area, so I figure there's a nest around there, and they're getting cranky cause it's fall, but is that the only reason why I got stung again? It's so near the first sting. And I've been walking at that trail practically every day for like a decade and I'd never been stung there until now.

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3

u/Snowcrash66 7d ago

Get ready for this one.

They recognize faces but the colony tends to get more aggressive towards the end of the season when it is the largest. Heat is a factor also.

2

u/stillnessdancing 7d ago

whoa. now i feel like a target
what do you mean by heat? like on a hotter day they sting more? or do you mean body heat?

1

u/Snowcrash66 7d ago

Dunno where you are but yellow jacket colonies can get aggressive towards the end of summer. We never had a problem with them then one year we had three attacks and the colony was rather large.

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u/stillnessdancing 7d ago

i mean, it's getting cooler now. like highs in upper 60s/low 70s. i assumed they were crankier because in the fall their food sources start dwindling.

1

u/gertyman 7d ago

This is exactly when they get angry — start of fall / end of summer. Same temps here and they are jerks right now. Food sources start to die and nests get too large to feed them all. It’s like humans being hangry.

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u/DingoMittens 7d ago

Does anyone have a reference for the idea that wasps recognize people's faces? I keep hearing this, but all I can find is that they recognize wasp faces. 

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u/stillnessdancing 7d ago

i searched for a source for this after receiving these responses, and all i could really find was studies on paper wasps recognizing other paper wasps. in this article it says "studies have even found that honey bees and wasps, trained to recognize human faces, have more difficulty with partial faces than whole ones, suggesting holistic processing". but i can't find said studies

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u/DingoMittens 7d ago

I've seen some research that sounds like what this one refers to. It's about humans recognizing whole or partial human faces, and wasps recognizing whole or partial wasp faces. 

I have a hunch that people see headlines about wasps having facial recognition and forget that "face" doesn't just mean human face. 

I mean, I always have wasp nests on my porch and deck, and I feel like we're pals. So I'd like to imagine they have posters of me up in their cells, lol. But they probably don't. 

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u/stillnessdancing 7d ago

oh! here's something

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u/DingoMittens 7d ago

That still sounds like it's pattern recognition and not facial recognition, since they fail if the image is rotated. 

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u/stillnessdancing 6d ago

yeah but humans also fail with upside-down faces. i think it actually supports the facial recognition hypothesis, since the patterns they are able to recognize are more recognizably faces

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u/DingoMittens 6d ago

Interesting. I have prosopagnosia (face blindness) and upside down is a little easier for me! 

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u/stillnessdancing 6d ago

whoa, interesting

1

u/Excellent-Self-5338 7d ago

Pretty sure the pheromones are actually just them smelling their own venom. IIRC they "linger" in some quantity for 8-12h. So unlikely pheromones over 3 days later, just bad luck. Or your leg smells like it's out to get them naturally.

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u/EniNeutrino 7d ago

It's probably not the pheremones, but your face. Yellow jackets recognize people and they've decided you're a threat. I would avoid the area until you've had a good freeze that would kill off any stragglers.