Pollinators are under tremendous pressure from human activity and it’s a threat to our food supply (which is increasingly produced in an unsustainable way - more later). Launching a beeswax brand, living out in the sticks, I felt like it was important that this was considered, not just for the candles, but in everything I do around the property. Things like switching from commercial weed killer sprays on the driveway, to using a blow torch attachment on a propane tank and wheeling the tank behind me in a buggy to burn the driveway weeds are pretty common as I learn more about changes I can make to improve the plight of pollinators around me. Bald faced hornets, the black and white ones that look like death skulls from hell 
flying at you to kill you…they’re part of that eco system too. They eat TONS of pest insects that can destroy crops and they do a large amount of pollination while they’re at it. Two benefits for the price of one absolute DEMON of a bite or sting.
Summer 2022
Sunny morning, standing on the front porch soaking it in for a second before walking to my car. I see the buzzing around my light pole at the corner of the house. Something’s building a nest up there, I can’t see well enough to tell what it is. Make a note of it and move on…maybe they’re bees and I can entice them to move into a hive I buy later.
Nope, not bees. And SUPER protective of the demon portal they’ve created in my flood light. Like kill everything in 20’ of the nest protective. Both my doors and my path to the car are in that radius. One of us bastards has to move.
August 8 -2022
Walking on front sidewalk, toward house, a flying skull comes at me at high speed, several behind him. Hits the side of my face on my sideburn and bites or stings me on first contact. Yelled several cuss words at it and started flailing my arms over my head. It lit the side of my face on fire for a few hours afterward. They gotta go.
8/10
They stung my dogs. That’s it.
Called several exterminators. The only bugger that answered wanted $350. For one nest, one time. Tried spray (felt REALLY guilty about it). Won’t shoot high enough. Now I can’t mow the front yard without them swarming and getting ready to attack.
Hmmmmm…what would a proper hillbilly do? Bottle rockets? Missed with a whole pack of em. BB gun, yeah that’s it. Appalachian problem, Appalachian solutions, shoot the damn things’ nest til they decide to move to a less lead filled part of the property. $40 Crossman 10-pump air rifle and a box of BBs later, I'm living a 12 year old boy’s Christmas morning dream, and still up $310.
Dewy morning in the hills. Coffee pot on and smells delicious. Time to give these monsters what for. Line up the shot using the plant hanger as a stabilizer, I started sniping, 10 pumps and one chambered BB at a time. Bit of a workout after hundreds of shots and being an out of shape old guy. Not to brag, but I'm +90% on target . Noticed an impact and paper spraying away from the nest coming from a different direction while reloading my own shot. Neighbor had starting taking scoped distance shots with his pellet gun from his front porch across the way. Like Dueling Banjos, but with BB guns. To the BFHs, it must have felt like a Western movie with a bad ending.
8/17
Knocked most of the light down after repeated fire. But the buggers still haven’t moved. So now I take 4 - 5 shots per day out my kitchen door, and they scramble the fighter jets repeatedly. A bit like global politics really. America and the American way will prevail or some such nonsense. We’re all riding this rock together, and if you’re gonna be an arsehole, I’m gonna put BBs into you until you’re out of range and doing your arseholery “over there”. But if they get my dogs again, I’m gonna find some of those Ukrainian black market weapons system everyone’s getting excited about and put a world of hurt on em.
8/27
They got my dogs again. Neighbor has been enlisted to climb the pole and soap and bag the nest for a trade of 2 candles. They won't move, they're the aggressors. Sometimes you have to kill when you live out in the sticks, and my days of being a crunchified pollinator steward are over with these things. Candle trades for the win!!