A resident of Minsk was stung by a wasp in December. A scientist explained how this is possible
And it happened in a Minsk apartment.
Valeria contacted Onliner and said that she was unexpectedly stung by a wasp this morning. «I had just woken up and reached for the nightstand for a hair tie, when suddenly a sharp pain pierced my hand,» says the interviewee. «When I came to my senses, I noticed a wasp on the floor. But it's December, and even for an apartment, a live wasp is something strange!»
Valeria's Friday morning didn't start well from the very beginning: she was stung by a wasp. There was no doubt about it — the insect was lying on the floor by the bed.
— I took an antihistamine, because my hand started to swell badly, and only after that did I start looking for the cause. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if it happened, for example, in summer, but in December — I couldn't even imagine that!
We asked Dmitry Rakhmatulin, head of the Scientific Beekeeping Center and head of the industry laboratory, where a wasp could have come from in the apartment and what generally happens with this type of insect in winter:
— Unlike bees, wasps and bumblebees hibernate separately — in the form of so-called sexually mature females, which will form a new nest next year.
And, unlike animals, insects do not go into suspended animation, as many believe. Diapause is characteristic of insects — a slowdown of processes in the body, during which they feel everything and can even defend themselves.
The situation, most likely, arose because a hibernating female found a cozy place in some item, entered diapause, and quietly hibernated. But then, for example, the wasp, along with this item, got into a warm room, warmed up — and its biological processes started.
According to the scientist, the insect might have made a mistake and «thought» that spring had already arrived. Therefore, feeling danger, it could attack and sting. Dmitry noted that wasps can get into an apartment along with warm clothes, vegetables or fruits brought from the balcony.
— Roughly speaking: you had a coat stored on the balcony, in which a wasp found a cozy place and went into hibernation. And when you brought the coat into the house, it crawled out of the pocket and stung you. This is normal from the wasps' point of view, but abnormal from the point of view of the wasp's own biological clock.
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