When insects attack

After weeks of gloom and drizzly rain, it finally feels like summer's arrived. Today's been warm and sunny and people (people who aren't attached to their computers) have been outside sitting in the sun, playing football, or having a barbeque.

Unfortunately, the warm and sunny weather is attracting insects. And since my window's fully open, many of them see this as an open invitation into my room.

Normally I don't really mind, as long as they don't buzz around my head and they're not 2-inch crane flies (which we've had a fair few of lately). This morning, though, the large insect that chose to come flying into my room was a rather large hornet that did the usual flying insect thing of, "Hmm, I know I got in here somehow, there must be an exit— no, wait! I'll bet I can get outside again by boring a hole through the window with my antennae!".

My window has two panes; one of them is in a movable frame that slides across the other, allowing for opening and closing. Large as the hornet was, all 1½ inches of it managed to get stuck between the two panes while I stood in the middle of the room panicking and clinging to a newspaper (with which I would, theoretically, sweep the hornet out of the window in an authoritative manner). See, I really, really hate large insects (well, large insects and medium- to large-sized spiders), and if there's anyone else around when I encounter one, they're damn well going to be the ones dealing with it. I live in hope that I will never again come across a stag beetle, particularly a flying one, since they are probably the one thing that provokes the greatest irrational fear response in me. I'm getting nervous just typing about them.

*shudder*

When the hornet was finally gone (I did my bit during the five minutes by occasionally and heroically flapping the newspaper at it, and having it ignore me utterly) I looked up hornets (or vespa crabro as I now know) on Wikipedia and found another childhood myth ousted. I've always thought that bees = okay, wasps = bad, and hornets = run. It seems that they're far less agressive than common wasps, though, and unlikely to sting you.

Ultimately though, my irrational fears hasn't been dispelled with logic. I'm sure I'll be just as scared next time I come across a hornet :-)