A few weeks ago, a friend told me about an incident at a picnic on the Northwest Pacific coast. Just after he and his friends sat down to enjoy the hotdogs they’d grilled, unwanted guests showed up. Yellow jackets. No amount of shooing would deter the black-and-yellow buzzers and before long there were more wasps than people. The picnickers fled as the stripy wasps settled in for a feast. Once the wasps had their fill, the wary picnickers returned.

What they found? The wasps had eaten the insides out of every hotdog, leaving behind the hollowed-out tubular casings.

My first reaction was incredulity. Yellow jackets feasting on hotdogs? That can’t be true.

This is exactly the kind of weirdness Saffi Graywood, the amateur sleuth in my Pacific Northwest Cozy Mystery series, looks for when she’s writing articles for Aunt Saffi’s Bedside Reader.

A bit of Saffi-style research verified that yellow jackets are not only carnivorous, they are aggressive. They’re responsible for most “bee” stings, but stinging isn’t the only thing they might do if you stick around the picnic table instead of fleeing like my friend did. Their jaws are strong enough to crush bugs for dinner or chew through meat—including your skin if you smell tastier than a hotdog.

Yesterday, my hubby and I decided to enjoy our sandwiches beneath the trees of Ashland, Oregon’s ever lovely Lithia Park. As soon as we’d unwrapped our lunch, the yellow jackets swooped in. Remembering the story I had shared about these wasps being meat eaters, he decided to put the “fact” to the test. (And keep our sandwiches for ourselves.) He pulled a small piece of ham from his sandwich and set it at the edge of the table.

Don’t believe yellow jackets like meat? Proof is in the video.

Check out Saffi’s sleuthing style and research abilities in Murder at Last Chance Cove, available in ebook, audiobook, or paperback through your favorite bookstore or at Amazon.