Do Wasps Have Feelings?

I had an interesting thing happen the other day. I was helping someone at their house and I hadn’t been in there but maybe an hour when I had to take something outside. When I opened the door, I saw a HUGE…and I mean huge, wasp looking thing on the storm door. It had to have been almost, if not, two inches long and CHONKY!! I was a little afraid to open the door at first, but I did anyway and observed it from a distance. I wondered if it was one of those Asian murder hornets.

I thought it was odd that it wasn’t scared off by having the door open and close. I went inside and told my friend to take a look at it and again, I opened the door and stepped out and it didn’t budge. She wondered what we should do and as I’m still trying to figure out why it’s even there, I looked to its left and saw a mate of hers(?) in a spider web! OOOOHHHH, THAT’S why she’s here!

The one in the web was smaller and I saw a leg or two moving. So the other one was either there for moral support or to see if it could help or….I don’t know! Logic told me that if I move its mate out of the web, the bigger wasp would leave the door and follow it. I found the longest stick that I could and attempted to get it out of the web.

As soon as I touched the stick to the web, I saw a very small spider run away from the body. That told me it had already injected its venom into the wasp and that it was probably done for, but I got it on the stick anyway and gently moved it into the grass out of reach of people. By the time I had gotten back to the porch, the larger one was gone.

This made my head spin for a while and I wondered if wasps have feelings? Was it actually a mate of the one that was in the web? So I googled it and it didn’t appear that they ‘mated for life,’ as some had asked. They did live in nests together but there was no sort of romantic bonding between them. So I liked to chalk it up to the fact that they were maybe friends and she was there to try and help.

When my friend sent me the photo above, I looked it up and I think it’s a European hornet (which have been in the US since the 1800s!). It said they could be anywhere from 1/2″ to 1.5″. I went back to that house with a tape measure because the photo makes it look small. I estimate that it was at least an inch or inch and a quarter long. It seemed like it was 5″ at the time!

Then oddly, the following day something else similar happened. The same night that I witnessed the large wasps, a smaller flying stinging thing had gotten into my bathroom. It was sort of near the shower and it flew in there and I closed the door slightly, figuring I’d let it out later.

The following day, a small wasp was flying around in my place and I figured it was that one from the night before (which I had actually forgotten about), so I managed to let it outside. Then it came back in. Over and over and over again. Every time I’d let it out, it would come through the gap between the screen door and the glass and come near me. It wasn’t being aggressive, but it did make me wonder what was going on here!

It was so persistent in finding its way back in that I was able to get this bad photo of it between the screen and glass to try and ID it.

It came back as a mud dauber wasp, but again, why is it in here? An hour or so later I took a shower and what did I find on the floor, semi-alive? One that looked just like this! Putting two and two together (and I’m not that good at math), I realized there was a pattern here. It was here to help its friend out! So I got the other wasp outside (who was fairly weak at this point) and it flew off. The other wasp was no longer trying to get in. I took it a bit overboard here, thinking the wasp helper may have been asking me to open the shower door and let his friend out! Why would he be bothering me instead of going into the bathroom to help his friend? The door was slightly open to the bathroom and the shower. He must’ve thought I was pretty dumb to not understand what he was asking of me!

So I googled it. I had forgotten that these insects send out pheromones when they are attacked or in trouble and that that scent can linger up to a few hours. I don’t know how far it spreads but it must have a wide berth. Naturally, one or more of their nest mates comes to inspect the situation and that’s why people get stung multiple times when they kill one. But this was a different scenario…it wasn’t because I tried to kill either one of these, it was simply calling out for help. I wondered if there was a different scent involved here. Otherwise, I should have rightly been stung.

After another hour or so, the original helper found its way back in! But I realized at that point that the scent must still be in the air. I told it, “I already freed your friend! She’s outside! Go find her! She’s not in here anymore!” I let it buzz around my head and ear and around my desk before showing it out for the 10th time. And after that, it really didn’t come back. Weird, huh? Then again, not really. While I’d love to think that wasps have feelings for each other (and maybe in a sense they do), it’s more about the incredible signals they’re able to send to one another that humans wouldn’t pick up on.

It could probably be explained better by an entomologist whereby insects aren’t physically capable of having “feelings” as we know it. Whether it’s a part of the brain or nervous system they just don’t possess or heck, maybe they do? When I googled if they have feelings, nothing really came up about it. There’s a guy who subscribes to my blog who is really into insects and their biology so maybe he can chime in here for a better understanding.

Just recently, a friend in New Zealand had posted about a bee getting stuck in a jar of honey. She was stressed because she didn’t want it to die but she also didn’t know what to do. Her dad just told her to let it die, so sadly she put it out somewhere to struggle in its honey coating. Then miraculously, a bunch of other bees came over to it and started cleaning the honey off of it. Guess what? It survived and flew off.

Anyway, I found it fascinating enough to warrant a blog post (without a million photos) and to share an interesting story about things people tend to simply overlook or not think much about. If you’ve ever had a similar experience, I’d love to hear about it in the comments!