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Chef Diogenes
@chefdiogenes.bsky.social

Fun fact! Because of how they handle dirt/dust to build a nest, they don't come into contact with it until it's diluted with bug spit, which drastically drops the danger level for them.

Pau Amma
@pauamma.bsky.social

#Alt4You 1/2 Picture: a lump of grey concrete with circular holes in its visible side, stuck to a white stucco wall. Caption: This is a photo from the shed at work. These are the nests that the mud bees build. Usually they are brown because of the mud.

Pau Amma
@pauamma.bsky.social

2/2 This one is grey because the bees are using fucking concrete dust from the bags we have in there and it is basically an Indestructible concrete bee fortress.

DAPANETEARF
@dapanetearf.bsky.social

I was really concerned that there was also something called a mud bee but it turns out that this is just the mud dauber wasps that I already knew about. Already had enough anxiety about the wasps don't also need mud bees in my life.

roseswithout.bsky.social
@roseswithout.bsky.social

I'm not sure how their wasp babies will escape the concrete tombs... We have a trouble spot between a patio door and it's frame -- very glad they haven't evolved to concrete usage. Fun fact, if you break open the normal ones, they're full of paralyzed spiders (widows here) and maybe baby wasps!

mike
@vagabondvivant.com

I would much, much rather have mud bees than mud wasps. Bees just wanna live their little bee lives. Wasps are assholes.

BIRD!!
@thatonecreature.bsky.social

There are several thousand species of wasps, majority of which are solitary wasps. Most wasps can't sting either. Mud daubers, the wasps responsible for the nests in the photo, are solitary wasps that want nothing to do with you.

BIRD!!
@thatonecreature.bsky.social

And in the case of social wasps like yellow jackets or hornets, they're territorial and get defensive of their nests. They're just wild animals much smaller then us and so are more likely to see us as threats.