Labor Day Encounter
On Labor Day this year, I visited West Point Dam, Georgia for a small family picnic. It’s supposedly a good spot for fishing, but I didn’t catch any. However, an uninvited guest took a liking to my fishing rod. It was a fellow Yellow Jacket, or so I thought!
Figure 1. Encounter at West Point Dam, Georgia. Video by Diemmy Dang, 2025. The video is 2 seconds long.
From my survival instinct, half of me wanted to shoo the strange-looking guest away; The other half of me took over and let the guest take the free ride. Perhaps sensing my intense glare, the guest left after approximately fifteen minutes. I guessed it is a bee based on the obvious appearance traits: the black and yellow stripes. The surrounding withered flower fields also contribute to this thought. However, what is it to be exact? Surely, there are so many species of them.
A Small Investigation
My best friend – Google, helped me get started on the investigation. I used the inefficient and brute-force way to search for “bee” and keep looking at the ones that strike the familiarity. The closest one I have gotten to is Hoverfly (flower fly). Hoverfly is a beneficial insect for ecosystems, pollinating plants and eating pests. As their round shapes suggested, Hoverfly are friendly and harmless to humans, and they are unable to sting. However, the guest never struck me as a friendly type.
As the investigation continued, Kayla – a fellow member of STEMComm VIP team, introduced me to Google Lens. Surprisingly, it gave me a solid answer right away – Robber fly. To be more exact, the guest belongs to the species Promachus rufipes (red-footed cannibalfly).
Despite the rhyme names with Hoverfly, Robber fly is an insect hunter. They are beneficial to the ecosystem by controlling pest populations, but they are also aggressive predators. Robber flies can cause painful bites if they feel threatened by humans.
As the fun investigation came to an end, I was left with curiosity. Why did I have conflicted reactions and emotions that day?
The Negative Human Emotion
A potential cause is that human instincts regarding insects have been passed down from ancestors. Fear of contamination, fear of being bitten, and fear of infestation can manifest into disgust as an emotional adaptation to help humans increase likelihood of survival (Jose, 2019). Small stings and bites can trigger an unknown allergy to a minority of people, threatening a good health body.
Growing up in the countryside, I was once chased by a group of wasps (?) when I was a child. Though the painful experience doesn’t last long in my memory, I have learned to avoid messing with bee kinds. Lockwood (2013) stated that “people consistently overestimate the likelihood that fear-relevant stimuli (e.g, an image of a spider) will be associated with a painful experience (e.g, an electric shock) compared to neutral stimuli” (p. 23). Humans survive by learning to avoid dangers. Survival of the fittest theory is still holding strongly.
Surprisingly, appearances can also contribute to human’s negative emotions toward insects. In cartoons, dangerous wild animals are commonly represented as cute creatures. Unlike them, small and harmless insects are usually depicted as ugly, visually unappealing, and sometimes villainous (Jose, 2019). According to psychologists, fear can be triggered by visual cues: “the ugliness of antennae … the oddly proportioned eyes and bodies, … discomfort of hairiness and sliminess … the more divergent a creature is from the human form, the greater its capacity to evoke fear” (Lockwood, 2013, p. 23). Jose (2019) suggests this has something to do with rejection response, which is a mechanism to keep human safe. The presence of insects has been associated with the threat of sickness, and disgust seems to be an evolutionary response to disease’s prevention. This idea is tied back to the survival of fitness theory.
The Positive Human Reaction
So, was my decision of letting the guest stay purely due to fear and disgust?
Despite the fear of an unknown insect, my original impression of the guest is a bee – an insect providing well known benefits. An experiment with different age groups, with the youngest in elementary school, and expert beekeepers found that all subgroups perceive bees as useful and worthy of conservation (Schönfelder & Bogner, 2017). Bee products and the importance of pollination for the ecosystem are remarked upon. Perhaps I was just letting a friendly insect take a break on Labor Day.
Final thoughts
Human instincts can be contributed by many factors. Although it’s not fair to fear insects differently from other wild animals, it’s important to keep oneself safe and healthy. Insect allergy can be severe, so if anyone is planning a trip to somewhere with a potential of bee family mass attack, wearing white or light-colored clothing might reduce the risk (Greene & Breisch, 2005).
As I conclude this article, it happens to be Thanksgiving as well. Happy holidays and stay safe out there!
References
Anne. (2023). File:Promachus rufipes 314724260.jpg. [Photograph] Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved November 27, 2025, from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Promachus_rufipes_314724260.jpg.
Greene, A., & Breisch, N. L. (2005). Avoidance of bee and wasp stings: An entomological perspective. Current Opinion in Allergy & Clinical Immunology, 5(4), 337–341. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.all.0000173781.58154.53
Jose, V. (2019). Why are humans so afraid of insects. International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development, 3(2), 1027–1029. https://doi.org/10.31142/ijtsrd21564
Lockwood, J. A. (2013). Chapter 2: Evolutionary Psychology: Survival of the Scaredest. In The infested mind: Why humans fear, loathe, and Love insects (pp. 20–34). essay, Oxford University Press.
Schönfelder, M. L., & Bogner, F. X. (2017). Individual perception of bees: Between perceived danger and willingness to protect. PLOS ONE, 12(6). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0180168
