The Smoke Signal

The Smoke Signal‘s interview with Junior Brian Mi, continued from our September issue:

By: Laura Chen

The Smoke Signal: How did you start waspkeeping?

BM: So it was just a usual day, not doing my chemistry homework, derping around online on this forum called Arachnoboards, which is an online forum for tarantula keepers and stuff. And then I saw this thread about wasp keeping, which led to a lot of research and Wikipedia-hopping. It took two months to convince my parents, but let’s face it, unlike me, they’re normal. I nabbed the wasps and the nest from their residence underneath my friend’s roof. The colony and I have this kind of rapport going on, and I doubt I can get them to sting me if I tried.

SS: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

BM: I want people to understand that most wasps don’t deserve the bad reputation they have, so maybe everyone will stop knocking down their nests and massacring them on sight. Wasps are interesting enough to qualify as something other than Raid target practice. The same thing goes with fish. People usually degrade fish down to nothing more than a pretty swimming ornament that lasts for a week at most, not as an actual living creature. However, if you actually care about these animals and put effort into their well-being, they’ll reward you by becoming far more impressive than most people give them credit for.

Check out Mi’s waspkeeping blog, www.thepolistesproject.wordpress.com, for his latest progress.