Frog Applause by Teresa Burritt for January 05, 2018

That’s putting the “psycho” in psychotherapy!

When I was a boy in Orange County, California, we looked for WASP nests in John Birch trees.

Go ahead. Collect this one. I dare ya.

Photo: https://felipedelbosque.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/fdb_2297.jpg?w=1000

A parasol wasp nest (Apoica pallens).

Pinocchio’s wood nose that the truth wood not find a girlfriend.

Nope. Nope. Nope.

Preferably wasp nests with wasp larvae included..

The wasp nest, also known as the take-out happy meal for blue jays.

Nature’s Acupuncture

There are just so many around nowadays. You can’t help but collect them. But on a cheerier note, it seems the honeybees are making a comeback.

There used to be a bar in Dallas called the Dirt Dauber.

The White House, Trump Towers, and Mar Largo would be good nests to start with.

For the head therapy .

It takes two to change a light bulb in a wasp’s nest.

One to make the drinks and one to call the electrician.

Live somewhere like we do and you can’t help but collect wasp nests – not necessarily voluntarily:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/95092956@N00/26103267334/

Occupied or un?

I get wasp nests all the time. Once there was a group of about a dozen wasps living on a lemon in (what else) my lemon tree. I didn’t want to spray them. I read that they eat whiteflies, which were covering my banana leaves and killing them. Whiteflies are gone now. Maybe it was the wasps. They’re gone too. It’s lonely here now.

I’ve collected a few pieces of wasp nests that were blown down in the winter. They are amazing to look at!

I found a sort of “Dear Abby” page about wildlife. Someone was curious about some missing wasp nests on her property. Here’s the answer:

There are a number of creatures that love to dine on wasp nests. Some of them apparently like a little pepper with their meals, and others are just looking for some fiber. Either way, the nest ends up destroyed.

Birds will work diligently at wasp nests to get at the larva. All that pecking can cause the nest to fall, and then the birds can easily carry the nest away to dine in private.

I suspect in both of your missing nest cases that an opossum is the responsible culprit, although skunks and raccoons may also have been involved.

Opossums are superb climbers and excellent diggers.

The first mammals were monotremes egg-laying mammals, then came marsupials and finally placenta mammals like ourselves. Opossums are ancient and amazing we have one living with us. Just as amazing as there are 5 species of monotremes exist, including 4 species of echidnas and the duck-billed platypus left in the world. And that is all.

I’d prefer the Alternative Therapy, thank you. Besides, in my condo, I’ve seen no wasp nests. There are plenty of woodsy areas adjacent or nearby where they may be lurking. I have had an occasional visitor buzzing at my window, but, being inhospitable, I have not let any indoors (at least, not intentionally)….

Thank-you, Teresa. Now I know what to call those confounded eyesores that keep popping up, blighting and blocking out the scenery along Lake Michigan.

Feel the sting.