Having spent several summers living with dirt daubers, they don’t build nests in the ground, they build them right above your bed. Which I’d be fine with (cause they really never bother anyone) if they didn’t decide to do it at 6 AM SOUNDING LIKE AN ELECTRIC DRILL.
This is all just made from someone’s uneducated opinions, so I wouldn’t call it a cool guide. Honeybees are great where they are native, which is Eurasia. In the americas, they are invasive, and hurting native bee populations. Commercial beekeepers have co-opted the “save the bees” slogan to sell their products, but they are a major cause of bee decline by outcompeting native bees, and by shipping hives across the country to various pollination contract sites, which spreads disease and pests.
Hornets and yellow jackets (which are both subsets of wasps) and other wasps are all great in context. You probably don’t want a yellow jacket hive next to your front door, but they are fantastic general purpose predators that can help keep your garden pest free. Likewise, there are many highly specialized wasps that will hunt specific pests like hornworms. Many wasps are also great pollinators like all the varieties of fig wasps.
The cicada killer description is spot on except it leaves out how absolutely massive they are. They look like a small red humming bird.
It’s missing bald faced hornets, which in addition to being ill tempered jerks like yellow jackets, can memorize faces of people who they perceive as a threat and will single them out of a group to attack.
Honey bees have stung me more than all other local insects combined.
