Bees?!

[jeffc12]

We moved here from Upstate NY and I would almost say it's the opposite. My wife and son are allergic to bee stings as well - I think there are less here than an NY - again we are from upstate though....Other bugs are a different story - there are way more different kinds of bugs down here that's for sure

[Noodlenoggin]

Originally Posted by Frank Coe

To be perfectly honest I have found less problems with "bees" here in Fl than in NY. Let me be more specific. I moved from LI to a waterfront community near, but not on the beach. Yes there are overall more insects here due to mild winters, but a couple of things really stood out to me. I hope I don't jinx myself, but I have not seen a Yellow Jacket here AT ALL. I could count the flies I have seen IN TWO YEARS on my two hands. I have seen NO bumblebees yet. A sad lack of honey bees as well. I often wonder how all of these wonderful flowering plants get pollinated. Now the "bad" news; we see quite a bit of these "mud" wasps here. They were in NY as well, but they are plentiful here, replacing most of the other "stinging bees" I had become accustomed to. The ray of sunshine here is although they are a nuisance with their mud nests which are notoriously difficult to remove, I have not bothered by them whatsoever. They are quite intimidating looking I must admit, but are entirely focused on the task at hand, namely finding dirt/mud and using it to build nests. No one in my family has been stung by a flying insect since moving here 2 years ago. I would gladly trade annoying flies and attacking yellowing jackets for ugly mud wasps that completely ignore me. Fire Ants..............now that's another story entirely.

^^ This ^^

I'm no fan of the area, but I agree...I don't think any of the 6 of us have been stung by a bee in the 5 years we've lived here. We moved from Michigan and had stinging nasties living under our porch, and if we stomped on the porch more than once, they'd come screaming out and attack. Here, the wasps look fierce, but they just bumble around and seem to have no interest in stinging. Haven't seen any bald-faced hornets at all, or yellow jackets, or those brown ground-bees. Just an order of magnitude LESS aggressive than the bees up north.

And yes, the fire ants are wretched little monsters. BUT, less aggressive than the ones in Texas. Here you can step full on a nest, and as long as you don't stop, the ants take 2-3 seconds before they come boiling out and you'll be okay.

Then there's the spiders. ALL of the freaking spiders. Holy Lord, the spiders. I actually shot a wolf spider in my living room with an airsoft pistol. It was that big.

[ms murrr]

BEES?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J2kc4oZTVU

(Just me?)