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[Rayblon]

When I arrived at our vacation home, I was greeted with a hornet on my blinds. I wanted to kill it then, and even thought about it about ten minutes ago. In hindsight, such cold sentiment wasn't warranted. The hornet in question never moved against me, though it turned to me, hopefully to get a better look and not to intimidate me(Which it still did). I could get remarkably close to her without her so much as moving, and just this morning I debated whether I should spray it with bleach or find a way to kill it without bathing myself in hornet pheromones. Even the thought of killing a defenseless creature, dangerous or not, weighed heavy on me. Lots of things can be fixed but lives can't be replaced. With my steely resolve and fear, be it innate or ingrained, I navigated the stairs from the kitchen, cup and envelope in hand. I placed the cup over the hornet without it moving at all. As I slowly slid the envelope under, mindful of when she couldn't keep up, I noticed just how cooperative she was. She was slow and deliberate just like me.

Once I had secured her, to celebrate I got out my phone to remember the occasion, as well as the one I didn't get to in time. She made a feeble attempt at escaping while I fumbled with my phone to snap my well deserved pictures. She continued her efforts to climb out slowly only to be knocked back down on the treck to the front door, only delayed by me showing her to the family.

I'd released many a spider before (and probably ended up getting them killed since they were house spiders), so I was, if only in a philosophical sense, an authority in such affairs. I gingerly tilted the cup on the cool porch of my town home to no avail. Rotating it did the trick. She fell and slid down the side of the cup onto the concrete. Our neighbors were going in and out of their home, a homely Latino family that has, and still does offer us many concessions for simply living next door. They took no notice of her(or at least didn't show it), yet my belated "hello" suggested the same for them on my part.

I harbored concern for her and them, but something inside me knew she wouldn't bring harm to us. She continued to slowly traverse the porch, disoriented, perhaps, before taking to the air for less than a second. The hard landing was soon followed by a much more graceful flight to a nearby potted plant. It was heartwarming, really. Something that was crawling over its' dead kin just a few minutes ago was now seemingly reinvigorated by the moist summer air. I saved a life.

I always thought Darwin's theory of survival of the fittestwas missing something, agreeability. If something behaves in such a way that it is deleterious to another species, then other organisms will become deleterious to the organisms in question, like Giraffes to Acacia trees. We've got alot of work to do before we can call ourselves agreeable, but it's the little things that make a big difference.

I'm sure we've all done it as kids. We played with bugs in the yard and squished them when we were done. We put ourselves in such a high position that we're raised disregarding what we'd jump to call lesser entities. I set myself apart from that years ago.

The following is actually my most emotional story, more so than my father's passing. It was my first year of high school, and the fall chill had settled in. I could see my breath since the week prior, back when I relished the cold. There was an amassing of people in the courtyard, encircling an auriel crawling away from the sticks they were prodding it with.

I hesitated, but before I knew it, a warm, felty mass was in my chilled hands. The crowd murmured,  "ew!", and "put it down!" reverberating off the glass walls of the courtyard. A quarter of the school witnessed as tears welled up and saturated my cheeks, hypothermic bird in hand. I handed it off to a woman in the janitorial staff who said she cared for birds of her own. People asked me if I washed my hands and why I did it for the rest of the day. Of course I washed my hands, and it was obvious why I did it. It was the only time I needed to meet with the school's social worker.

Perhaps it's just me trying to offset myself from everyone else, or trying to make myself agreeable to the non - human others, or common sense, or my habit of putting myself in the position of animals, but I'm compelled to keep helping what I can. Hopefully you are too.

[pspeed]

I generally cup+paper bugs to get them outside.  Stinging insects just as often go in the toilet, though.  Spiders I ignore or relocate.  They are my allies but I still won't tolerate one climbing across my keyboard. :-/

re: the hornets, we used to have some stinging insect of some kind that would appear inside our back door.  They'd start out barely moving and eventually climb their way up the glass.  They were freshly born and could not fly well yet.  We didn't know where the nest was, though.  As often as not, I'd put those outside.

Later when I was replacing the rollers in the doors I had to take them out.  In the top track of one of the doors (the non-sliding door) there was the crusty mud of a nest.

Moral of the story: you may similarly have a nest somewhere.  Your description sounds exactly like a freshly hatched hornet.

[Rayblon]

I wouldn't doubt the presence of a nest given where the town homes are situated. Here's to hoping their reputation as bug hunters holds true.

[Rayblon]

I opened my front door to discover the hornet waiting for me yesterday...It was  just flying there, not attacking or anything.

Good to know she's faring well I guess.

[Rayblon]

Apparently florida's native hornets are more docile than yellowjackets. They're dog tame, I can pick them up off the ground and they don't care. Man, hornets get a bad name despite their nature. I guess they're in the same boat as sharks.

[pspeed]

Apparently florida's native hornets are more docile than yellowjackets. They're dog tame, I can pick them up off the ground and they don't care. Man, hornets get a bad name despite their nature. I guess they're in the same boat as sharks.

I think the reputation comes from "hornet's nest" and I can assure you that if you kick one of those you will be unhappy.  Perhaps the isolated hornet is not such a big deal.

But red wasps... those are evil.  Just stay away.  As a newly minted teen, I once had one chase me across a field to bite me three times and sting me twice.

[Rayblon]

I found the nest - they have a nest in some cheap accent we have by the pool house. It's next to the bathrooms but they just  ignore us even when we're knocking on the damn thing. So far, no hornets have attacked any residents despite the fact that it's inches away from the men's bathroom. So long as there are no extensive damages to property caused by them they should be left untouched. They do a better job at clearing out the pest insects than the several hundred resident lizards and dragonflies.