Because they have an extremely painful sting, we have a 4-year-old and they were right outside our house on the back porch. We often run around shoeless or wearing flip-flops or sandals, so...better safe than sorry (especially with our 4-yr-old, who is allergic to EVERYTHING.)
I should also clarify that when I say "hubby freaked out"...he did NOT literally jump around doing the happy dance & screaming like a girl...actually, he just had one of the boys get a cup & catch it (for positive ID, since that was the first one), so that it wasn't crawling around potentially stinging someone...but he did say "No" about keeping them.
We are fine with most bugs around the house, except the worst of the worst (when it comes to stings, bites, etc.)...so we don't like having things like recluse spiders, brown or black widows, scorpions, mosquitoes, hornet, wasps & cowkillers...all of which are prevalent here. We need MORE bees, not less, so we leave them alone. And while we occasionally get startled by the odd giant wolf spider dashing across the floor, we usually just shoo them out the door or let them go on their merry way...hoping they will keep the widows & recluse spiders at bay.
One of the boys caught a GIGANTIC "grass spider" (actually, I think they are usually called garden spiders or nursery web spiders), and I had planned to take a pic and show y'all, but they released it before I could. I thought it was a big ol' momma wolf spider at first, but it had the tell-tale "sunflower seed" stripes on its abdomen, so I was totally shocked...it was the biggest grass spider I'd ever seen! It's abdomen looked like a grape! :blink: Makes me now wonder if all the ones I'd seen before were just males. :huh:
I'll just try to relax more and let her do her thing.
