Wasps

When I stepped from the back door a couple of days ago, my head was swarmed. While I should have just moved quickly onward, I didn’t - I waved my arms, trying to sweep the swarm away.  The swarm pressed into my hair and tightened against me.  Luckily, I was stung only once – the lobe of my right ear was pierced.  It was wasps.

After I escaped the swarm I looked back to see that the wasps had constructed a nest on the bottom of my deck.  The nest hung just two feet beyond and above the back door.  It was an inopportune location for a bunch of anxious wasps as well as for me, the anxious home-owner who regularly walked below the nest.

Last night after the wasps were asleep, I sprayed their nest.  I had purchased a can of wasp killer when I went to the grocery for a New York Times yesterday.  I hated to destroy them.   The nest was beautiful, a symmetrical, gray cone – if only they had built somewhere more distant from my door and my head.  When I lifted the aerosol can toward the nest, I had expected a light spray; instead, it emerged with the force of a garden hose, recoiling my arm and blasting the nest.  I backed-off to spray more.  Two wasps zipped from the nest entrance, and I backed through the door.  This morning I found a cluster of dead wasps, suspended together, hung from the opening of the nest.  A horror.  I have been their Hurricane Katrina.  Forces of nature make us suffer our building choices.

Comments

Larry: what is it about wasps and guilt? A few weeks ago, they built a nest on the gutter of my garage. The neighbor boy Graham, who is 8, said to me while he played catch with his father and his two younger siblings, “You have a wasp’s nest on your garage.” “Yeah, isn’t it cool?” I said. I walked over to examine it. It was beautiful, intricate as an ash log before it has crumbled into the fire’s fierce heat. Two days later, when Graham’s father was at work, Graham was out alone while I was watering my plants. He said to me, “you still have wasps. My dad knocked the nest down yesterday, but the wasps are building another one.” He spoke with the conviction of an old testament prophet. “Okay, thanks for telling me,” I said sheepishly. It dawned on me that to admire the nest for its aesthetics instead of destroying it was the exact wrong thing to do in this tightly populated suburb, next to a hardworking couple with three small children. Why had I not taken the hint when he mentioned it the first time with is father there? All I could think was what an irresponsible and insensitive neighbor I was. The guilt lasted as least as long as a sting. Maybe longer.

[Chris Wemmer]

Well, those social wasps can be troublesome and they do sting like hell, but you can redeem yourself before the BD God by building a wasp farm for solitary wasps, as described by the great wasp biologist Howard Ensign Evans (in "Wasp Farm"). I used to make them for eco-friendly friends, and it was jolly good fun showing the neighbors the rows of narcotized caterpillars under the glass as the wasp larvae munched away. Then I would say, "It sure is nice to see those caterpillars here, rather than in the vegetable garden."

[kate]

Ah, the joys of living in an urban environment and trying to co-exist with wasps, tent caterpillars, cutworms, squirrels, raccoons, skunks and gophers. I once made the mistake of collecting my neighbour's empty wooden grape crates and leaving them on the back deck ... the wasps were none-too-happy when I tried shooing them away so I could take the crates inside to paint.

[larry]

Debbie and Kate, thanks for the stories. And Chris, thanks for the suggestion.