> Dear All > > I presume that you over there in the colonies talk about yellow jackets you > are referring to what we in the old country call wasps? I must say chaps > that yellow jackets make them sound *very* benign, like some sort of kids' > holiday camp staff! WASP has the ring of something aggressive enough to > catch our beloved honeybees on the wing and bite their heads off ... Believe me, yellowjackets (usually written as one word) certainly are not associated with "benign". They are a wasp (I think actually a form of hornet) and are very common where I am. They are agressive, sometimes going after sugary stuff (or honey) and sometimes going for meat. Around here, "yellowjacket" is as much associated with bite-our-bee's-heads-off mean as "wasp" is. -Mike