Illinois

It's Wasp Season In Illinois: Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Kill Them

Published

2 years ago

June 11, 2024

It's Wasp Season In Illinois: Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Kill Them

I have very little trouble admitting that I’ve killed more than a few wasps in my time. I’ve always had a live and let live relationship with bees, but wasps have always been on my kill-on-sight list.

I even went so far as to order the most souped-up electric bug-zapping racket I could find on Amazon. This thing is a one touch-one corpse gadget, and it has left a pile of wasp bodies in its wake, let me tell you. I also added the salt shooting “Bug-A-Salt” gun to my backyard arsenal. Think of it as a shotgun that fires table salt that obliterates insect pests.

Bug-A-Salt, Facebook

Dead wasps The concept of a tired worker

This is what happens when you bring a stinger to a salt-gun fight. (Getty Images)

It Turns Out That Wasps Do A Lot Of Good. Really.

So what good are these things that offer up painful stings, build nests under our eaves and decks, and seemingly do little else besides buzz around you and your family while you’re trying to enjoy a night on the patio?

A piece up at ThoughtCo.com says that wasps of all sorts offer some great ecological benefits like “pollination, predation, and parasitism.” I know what the first two are, but the last one sounds like a word that describes many politicians.

Wasps are apparently interested in more things than just stinging us:

For instance, paper wasps carry caterpillars and leaf beetle larvae back to their nests to feed their growing young. Hornets provision their nests with all manner of live insects to sate the appetites of their developing larvae. It takes a lot of bugs to feed a hungry brood, and it’s through these needs that both hornets and paper wasps provide vital pest control services.

Gallic polist forages a flower in summer.

Getty Images

So, wasps handle some of the much-needed pollination jobs, and they kill and eat all sorts of pests like caterpillars, spiders, and aphids. However, they are temperamental and territorial, and will happily sting you.

I’m not going to apologize for the ones I’ve “removed from the game,” but maybe I might not be so quick to grab my zapping racket and Bug-A-Salt gun in the future.

LOOK: 20 of the biggest insects in the world

Stacker compiled a list of 20 of the biggest insects in the world using a variety of news, scientific, and other sources.

Gallery Credit: Andrea Vale

LOOK: 20 of the strangest natural phenomena in America

From fire rainbows to bioluminescent bays, America is home to some truly bizarre natural phenomena. See Stacker’s list of 20 of the strangest natural phenomena in the U.S.

Gallery Credit: Martha Sandoval

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Illinois

Beecher City farm suffers heavy damage following ‘wicked storm’

Published

2 hours ago

June 18, 2026

Press Room

Beecher City farm suffers heavy damage following ‘wicked storm’

BEECHER CITY, Ill. (WAND) – Farms were damaged in Effingham County Wednesday evening when a powerful storm swept through at around 8 p.m.

The McKay Farm in Beecher City was heavily damaged when the rapidly moving storm hit.

“Two buildings were totally destroyed,” Dan McKay told WAND News on Thursday. “We’ve got five grain bins and they’re all damaged.”

The buildings collapsed onto farm equipment and a semi that were parked in the structures. A utility pole was snapped and ripped out of the ground.

In nearby Shumway, another farm was hit. A barn collapsed, with a grain bin being ripped apart and debris traveling several hundred feet through a nearby corn field. A house on the property was also damaged.

There were no injuries on either farm.

“It was a really wicked storm,” McKay stated.

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Illinois

Powerful tornadoes leave behind devastation in Illinois

Published

13 hours ago

June 18, 2026

Press Room

Powerful tornadoes leave behind devastation in Illinois – CBS News

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Violent tornadoes ripped through central Illinois on Wednesday, leaving behind swaths of destruction. One man described how he shielded himself and his family from the storms. Rob Marciano reports.

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Illinois

Storms bring damaging winds and heavy rains to central Illinois

Published

23 hours ago

June 18, 2026

Press Room

Storms bring damaging winds and heavy rains to central Illinois

PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — Multiple rounds of severe storms impacted central Illinois on Wednesday bringing damaging wind gusts and very heavy rain. Our area was sparred from the worst of the tornadoes, but areas south of I-72 were not so fortunate with damage to homes and injuries reported.

An outflow boundary from our morning storms struggled to get any further north than highway 136, which was about 30 miles south of what was anticipated early this morning. This kept the risk of strong tornadoes just south of our local region, though we still had plenty of rain and instances of large hail and gusty winds roll through central Illinois.

The worst of the wind came with the storms in the morning. As the severe storms moved through the area they produced measured gust of 60-70 mph with localized gusts estimated to be around 80 mph. The winds resulted in tree, powerline, and structural damage from Knox through McLean County.

Storm Reports

Galesburg – Tree and power line damage
Williamsfield – Roof partially torn off building
Princeville – Tree damage
Dunlap – 60 mph wind gust
Bellevue – 60 mph wind gust
Germantown Hills – Trees down
Roanoke – 60 mph wind gust
El Paso – Power poles snapped
El Paso – Multiple semis and campers rolled on I-39
Gidley – 70 mph wind gust
Chenoa – Semi rolled on I-55

Dunlap – 1.0″ size hail
Metamora – 1.0″ size hail
Armington – 1.0″ size hail

Rain reports

West Peoria – 4.37″
Lexington – 4.00″
West Peoria – 3.98″
Washington – 3.97″
East Peoria – 3.47″
Dunlap – 3.40″
Goodfield – 2.47″
Towanda – 2.43″
Peoria (PIA) – 2.24″
Lewistown – 2.20″
Galesburg – 1.84″
Chillicothe – 1.52″
Pontiac – 1.27″