The Mutually Beneficial Relationship of Hornets & Horses – Part 2

After receiving the spiritual message from hornet/wasp in my last post and video, you may be wondering how we actually cope with having 20-30 wasp nests in our barn every summer. Not to mention the 3 massive hornet hives this year. What happens to me, my barn helpers, visitors etc with so many hornets, wasps and yellow jackets around?

In this video, I will show you all the practical considerations of living in harmony with such aggressive creatures and how we honor their medicine of tenacity and strong boundaries…

Just recently, we’ve been blessed with swarms of another beautiful insect; the dragonfly. As the summer weather fades to cold nights, the hornets and wasps are reaching the end of their lifecycle. So dragonfly shows up to rapidly consume the waning wasps.

And as I suspected in the video, wasps do indeed scavenge protein from manure piles:

“Wasps adopt different techniques when hunting. Wasps will randomly root around for hidden insects and you will see them rooting through the grass, searching for insects on the underside of leaves, looking into holes and crevices and cracks in bark, searching along twigs and branches, rooting through compost heaps and rooting through faecal matter.

They will also scent damage done to leaves and will come looking for any insects that might have caused such damage such as caterpillars. Hunting wasps will hunt on sight and will chase down and catch flies and mosquitos and other flying insects. Hunting wasps will visit and rob out any insects caught in cobwebs and they will do this without getting caught themselves. Wasps will also scavenge for carrion and will strip a corpse of its flesh within hours. During the hunting phase of the wasp life cycle, an average sized wasp nest will eradicate between 4 to 5 metric tons of insect pests in a year.”

And if you’re as fascinated by wasps as I am, definitely check out this fabulous book, Endless Forms, by Seirian Sumner:

“Bees and ants have long been the darlings of the insect world. But the first ant was a wasp that lost its wings, and a bee is a wasp that has forgotten how to hunt. This much-maligned winged thug of the insect world is the stinging picnic botherer of most people’s imagination but is in fact older, cleverer, and more diverse than them all. The evolutionary ancestor of the bee – flying 100 million years earlier – the wasp is just as essential for the survival of our environment.

The closer you look at these spurned, winged insects – both custodians and bouncers of our planet – the more you see. Their secrets have so far gone mostly untapped, but Endless Forms offers up a maligned insect in all its unexpected, mesmerising splendour and reveals that the potential of the wasp is indeed, endless.”

What an amazing world we live in.

The Mutually Beneficial Relationship of Hornets & Horses – Part 2

8 thoughts on “The Mutually Beneficial Relationship of Hornets & Horses – Part 2

  • August 16, 2020 at 8:13 am
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    I think my comment on part 1 touches on all points…but when I was in my 20s and my life was not as congruent as it is now and I did live in a bit of chaos …I was stung many times by bees and other stinging creatures! Little did I know it was messages to try and help me! I so understand now and can even remember a lot of the times I was stung and the message they were probably trying to help me receive!
    ✌🏼💚🐴

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    • August 16, 2020 at 9:24 pm
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      I went to trim the horses hooves today and they told me to go meditate first LOL. They showed me my energy was just like an annoying buzzing wasp 😉

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    • September 6, 2021 at 4:20 am
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      Hi Michelle, thanks for sharing your experience and perspective. I live in tropical, humid country on the Equator so its perpetual summer here. I’ve been spraying peppermint oil around my windows but have not sprayed it the past week. I opened my windows to sun and air my room and I was about to close them for the evening to prevent cockroaches flying in when a single large Greater Banded Hornet flew in. It was flying around and seemed to be surveying the area for a nest and now has started building a nest in my ceiling light which is right above my bed! My ceiling is not as high as the barn ceiling. I don’t have pets or an open garbage I do have lots of wood sticks and some wood rattles in my room as part of my practice. Even though I am a healer, oracle and shamanic practitioner, I embrace that I am very human and feel alarmed and afraid. My family and me also have a history of allergies to bee, wasp and hornet stings and I have lived through strong allergic reactions to many things since I was young. What do you feel and what do you recommend in this case?

      Reply
  • June 22, 2021 at 8:32 am
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    Thank you so much for sharing how you attuned with the presence of these swirling hornets. I had found a colony in the bushes of my garden a few days ago, and in order to continue with water pipe construction, we had to get rid of it. Out of “urgency” and panic, we got rid of them before I had time to connect with these beings. As soon as we caught the hive in a plastic bag, I had a bad feeling, a sense of guilt and remorse. It was a precious opportunity to be present and open for guidance, yet we chose fear instead of love. The message you had received from the hornets also resonate strongly with me…I have been swirling around in chaos from building my house and resisting it with all my might. I have been deadened to see and receive any opportunities. At the same time, completely overwhelmed by work and poor boundary setting. Your insights were spot on! Thank you for sharing your experience and the gracious reminder of the invaluable lessons we can learn from nature.

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    • June 22, 2021 at 2:04 pm
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      Love your awareness Liane! We’re all so lucky that animals are so patient with us 😉 The horses are always teaching us about boundaries, which tells me that pretty much all of us struggle with this issue. It’s also one of those things that doesn’t really disappear with mastery, it just gets more and more refined or elegant.

      I also recently had an epiphany with myself around overwhelm… I realized that I actually choose to be routinely overwhelmed, because I don’t like to do things step-by-step, or gently, or gradually. I would actually rather have it be really hard, yet get to where I really want to be in 1/10 of the time.

      So that realization allowed me to stop beating myself up, or feeling so useless because I continually felt overwhelmed, weak, or useless. Oh right, I purposely set it up this way! Okay!! And just like boundaries, this is something that just changes in scale as we progress. As I GET BIGGER, I can handle much more, so then I can do so much more, so then I still choose the action/option that is just beyond my comfort zone = overwhelm.

      That’s how it works with me anyway! Perhaps when I’m 80 I’ll be ready to slow down and take the gentler path… 🙂

      Reply
      • June 26, 2021 at 4:38 am
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        Hi Jini,

        Thank you for your reply and for sharing about your recent epiphany. It resonates a lot too with me. So much of what we “storm” through we brought upon ourselves out of fear or habit. It seems like our inner child are stuck in this cycle of self-fulfilling prophecy until we consciously change through deep love for ourselves and trusting in the divine. I like the way you describe that it is not mastery we are aiming for, hence it doesn’t get easier per se, but only more perceptible through refined sensitivity and elegant responding. Much gratitude to you!

        Also, would like to share with you my experience with these swirling giants: https://1ning.wordpress.com/2021/06/26/swirling-giants/

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        • June 26, 2021 at 10:16 pm
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          Wow Liane – what an amazing, beautiful, awesome story. I just loved it and thank you so much for sharing it here with all of us.

          I’m so curious as to what you’re doing with your land… is it a communal project, or are you the solo owner? And what’s your vision for it? What is driving you to accomplish so much, so quickly? Fascinating…

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        • June 27, 2021 at 12:08 am
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          Okay wait – never mind – I’ve been reading through your wonderful blog and found the answers here:

          https://1ning.wordpress.com/2020/12/02/humanure-bananas/

          But now I’m wondering how the bio-septic banana pit worked out… all good? Or did you have to modify? I love the way you share all your experiments and also resources, along with lots of pics! After reading your other post, I actually feel like I could make a workable clay oven! GREAT stuff Liane!!

          Reply

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