Follow that wasp!

Monday:
“Must be 5,000 if not 10,000 wasps in that tree,” the wasp man tells us.
This does not make us feel any better.
We wait as he gazes up into the branches.
“Can’t see a nest…nothing I can do unless we know where the nest is,”
We look at one another, Lisa and I. Isn’t that why we have called him?
“They’re feeding now,”
“Are they?”
The busy buzzing creatures are not bothering us, it is true, they are far too busy.
“You need to follow them and see where they go,”
That’s helpful. We see a wasp heading off down the garden, just the one. Eagerly, our man follows. We trail behind.
“Didn’t seem to go anywhere in particular,” he decides.
“No,”
There is a lot of standing around, looking up into the trees again.
“Thousands of ‘em,”
“What can we do?” we have to ask the question.
He shrugs, “Not much I can do without knowing where the nest is,” he tells us.
We are no nearer to a solution than we were half an hour ago.
“Your best bet is to put some lager in a jar and they’ll come to it,”
Well, that’s all very well but ten thousand bees in a jar? Is that even possible? Besides, he tells us that the Queen will just keep on laying.
The sun is beginning to set.
“They’ll go home, wherever that is, soon,” he explains, “You just need to watch where they go…”
(BBC Country File where are you when needed?)
Wasp man leaves and we wait for dusk. Armed with a torch we step out again and look upward, downward, anywhere-ward. It is quiet. The wasps are nowhere to be seen but wait—what is that persistent hum? It is coming from the clump of trees and bushes that we are now directly beneath. Surely, the nest must be in the tree?
We fetch a torch, hurriedly charged, which we point in every direction. No wasps to be seen but the continuous hum persists. The torch loses its battle and we are in darkness.
“Have to try again tomorrow,” we tell ourselves.

Early August
A few weeks ago, we had reason to dismantle the pile of plastic garden chairs that were stacked at the side of the house, for cleaning. As we did so, an angry swarm of wasps buzzed around us. It was clear they had emerged from behind the chairs but closer inspection revealed an airbrick into which they were disappearing every few seconds with others emerging to take their place. Evidently, there was a nest behind the airbrick somewhere, possibly in the walls of the house, eek!
Being sensible, we moved the chairs away to complete the cleaning. Satisfied that there must be a nest which would explain the inordinate number of wasps we have seen in the house this summer, I followed the instructions on the relevant page of the Council’s website, completing an enquiry form and explaining the problem. I did not get a response so I tried phoning but after a fifteen minute wait, an automated voice asked me to call back later as all lines were busy (buzzing perhaps?)
The prolonged hot weather has evidently caused a surge in the numbers of these little beasties of late.
Further research suggested I could deal with the problem myself by squirting anti wasp powder into the airbrick, morning and night, for a few days.
Off to the hardware shop went I.
Returning, armed with powder and a spray (just in case), I waited for dusk and puffed clouds of powder into and around the holes in the airbrick. A few disconcerted wasps guarded the brick. As always, I felt a little guilty for doing this but apparently, if one doesn’t, the wasps just make the nest bigger and bigger and the problem exacerbates. I persevered and within the week wasps had ceased to either emerge or disappear into the brick which now looks like a powder puff.

We enjoyed a few wasp free weeks.
Then – horror of horrors! We noticed that the bushes and trees on one side of the garden, in the same corner, were, literally, alive with wasps.
At first, I believed the mass to be the surviving wasps from the nest I had treated, too knowing to be drawn into my trap. Of course, this is not a wasp’s mentality at all. A wasp will try and save his Queen with his dying breath – quite admirable really. Investigation with the proper authorities revealed that this was the case. These are new wasps.

Tuesday:
So, now we find ourselves waiting for dusk again, ready to set up another evening vigil, with a fully charged torch this time perhaps. The wasp man is coming back this evening to see if he can do anything. Lisa and I are considering attaching radio transmitters to some of the wasps in order to track them. The wasps are being very busy in the bushes and must be taking their ill-gotten gains somewhere, if only we could see where. The wasp man fails to appear.

Wednesday:
A lone vigil. I stand in the garden as the sun goes down, my eyes trained on every wasp that leaves the tree. A few seem to go nowhere in particular, a few double back as though they have forgotten something but others…others are heading for the guttering…up, up into the eaves…and what is that I spy in the apex where the tiles meet the roof? I do believe it could be a nest. Well, it could be…

I have looked up wasps on the National Geographic website and found this surprising piece of information:

“Despite the fear they sometimes evoke, wasps are extremely beneficial to humans. Nearly every pest insect on Earth is preyed upon by a wasp species, either for food or as a host for its parasitic larvae. Wasps are so adept at controlling pest populations that the agriculture industry now regularly deploys them to protect crops.” National Geographic

Apparently, there are more than 30,000 species of wasp, not all of whom sting. The brightly coloured varieties are the more ferocious it seems, wearing their bold livery to warn us away.
None of this makes me feel any easier of course. The variety in our garden is brightly coloured and great in number and will double in number next year if we leave them.
My guilt at destroying their nests is tempered by a natural sense of self preservation.
In short, it’s us or you buzzy wasps!