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The German Yellowjacket (Vespula germanica) Problem in the United States (Hymenoptera: Vespidae)

1980; Oxford University Press; Volume: 26; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/besa/26.4.436

2376-9041

John F. MacDonald, Roger D. Akre, R. E. Keyel,

Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Research

Yellowjackets are the familiar social wasps which typically build large paper nests consisting of multiple combs enclosed in an envelope (see Greene and Caron 1980). Workers of all yellowjacket species aggressively defend their colony if it is disturbed and such workers are probably responsible for many of the stinging episodes attributed to “wasps and bees” (Fluno 1961, Barr 1974). Although difficult to accurately document, the number of serious reactions and deaths resulting from yellowjacket stings is high enough to have stimulated an increasingly greater interest of medical researchers into the problems of human hypersensitivity to yellowjacket venom and venom desensitization methodology. Akre et al. (1980) reviewed the medical importance of yellowjackets, as well as the economic impact of yellowjackets on resorts, campgrounds, lumber operations, fruit harvests, etc., in those areas of the USA periodically experiencing years of yellowjacket abundance.