On September 28th, I put up a couple of posts mentioning wasps, one of which received a comment. It seems that people generally dislike and fear wasps – as I did myself when young – and I therefore thought I would like to try to redress the balance by finding some online pages that present a more positive view of this much maligned creature. That turned out to be far more difficult than I expected. Most pages are produced by pest control businesses and even those by organizations that study insects tend to adopt a cautionary attitude. I found it all rather discouraging.

Photo from Pixabay

I would like to recount three incidents with wasps that led to me revising my negative attitude towards our stripey friends. Each sparked my curiosity and increased my interest in them.

The first was once when, on holiday in France, we were eating our evening meal outside on a terrace. A wasp came down to investigate my plate. Instead of shooing it away, I waited to see what it would do. It descended very slowly like a little helicopter and very gently seized a tiny morself of food and then flew off with it! I imagine it was going to feed its catch to hatchlings in the nest as adult wasps can only consume liquids, not solid food.

The second incident was in the same house. On the balcony there were deckchairs with wooden frames and I noticed that each frame bore marks: straight lines 2 or 3 cm long and about a couple of millimetres wide. I vaguely wondered what caused them. Then one day I found out. I watched a wasp land on a deckchair and begin to walk slowly along, obviously intent on something. I looked more closely: the wasp was cutting a thin shaving of wood off the surface of the frame and rolling it up as she went. When she had a large enough roll, she flew off with it, leaving behind a damp line in the wood. I concluded that as wasps make their nests of paper, she was collecting building material.

The third incident was when we were sitting out on a pub terrace in summer. I had finished my fizzy fruit drink and the empty glass had patches of foam inside it. I watched as a wasp came down, flew into the glass, settled on the surface and began “hoovering up” patches of foam! I was enchanted by this, so much so that I went off to buy a folding magnifying glass to carry with me in order to get a better view of any siimilar encounters in future! (I still carry it and it has served well on many occasions.)

Photo Egor Kamelev

We know how important bees are to the environment and to our food production but wasps are important too. They also have a role to play in the pollination of plants and they are essential in controlling the numbers of other creatures that we consider pests, such as caterpillars that infest food plants. Without wasps, our environment would become unbalanced.

I accept that wasps can be harmful to humans. I have been stung myself several times, happily with no further consequences, though I know that there are people who are allergic to wasp stings and can become gravely ill as a result of being stung. A sting to your mouth or throat can be particularly serious.

If you do enounter a wasp, don’t panic. Don’t start flailing your arms about as this is likely to alarm the wasp and cause it to do exactly what you are trying to prevent: to sting you! Stay calm, usher the wasp away from your face with gentle movements, and the wasp will probably lose interest in you and fly away.

In autumn, when all work in the nest has come to an end, the wasps are left needing to find food in the environment. Hungry wasps can be aggressive. (Do you blame them? I don’t!) They will be attracted to food, especially to sweet sugary concoctions. If you eat outisde, particularly in autumn, don’t be surprised if wasps think they are invited to the feast. Many clashes between humans and wasps can be avoided by the humans behaving sensibly.

If you firmly dislike wasps, or are afraid of them, then I don’t expect this brief account to change your outlook. Or perhaps it will. Wasps are not your enemy. They are necessary to the environment and, as I discovered, can be fascinating to watch, as can all creatures on the planet.

This Natural History Museum page offers a reasonably balanced account of wasps and their importance.