Sometimes you have to be ready to take a stand. To proclaim boldly, “This is the line; you shouldn’t cross it any further. “
Unless it has wings, a sword, and an angry being. Then run away.
Over the years, I’ve had a weak relationship with wasps. While hornets aren’t the (dirty) idiots, they never really annoyed me. I’ve never been stung, nor have they attacked me aggressively, but that doesn’t mean understanding their nature.
I once saw a friend battle a wasp’s nest in the bold King Kong style with a paint sprayer. Finally he went down the ladder he was standing on and broke up with the wasps.
I’ve always been inclined to share the earth with wasps. You go your way and I’ll go my way, but we have to draw the line to build a house under our awning.
Since we moved into the house, we can rely on a wasp trying to build its house under the protection of the picture window awning. Again, they left me alone while I tend my raspberry harvest, and only now and then they peck at the hummingbirds trying to land at the A&W of bird feeders, though that kind of stopped since the woodpecker started that stops at the feeder. Perhaps the wasp – where the hornet wouldn’t – understands the difference in size and just tries to stay away.
Because I didn’t really have a problem with wasps, I choose to tear down the nest instead of waging chemical wars against the living things.
However, something has changed recently. As I began to move towards the wasp’s nest, I noticed that the wasp that lived there had no regard for me or the hoe I was carrying.
Instead, it crawled around its house and continued to look me up and down. Obviously she too was determined not to take another step in my dictatorial way to kick her out.
Like the man I am, I hit the nest and quickly but confidently withdrew to the courtyard, knowing full well that I had actually not knocked down the nest.
More specifically, the wasp seemed unimpressed by my first attack and simply returned defiantly to its nest.
I tried one more time and missed the second time. This time the wasp was starting to fly over the raspberries, so I pulled back further, wondering if I should have trained woodpeckers for cover missions.
The wasp, of course returned, and on my third attempt I managed to tear the nest down and immediately lost track of the raspberries, which means the nest might still be usable in any way.
But I couldn’t worry about that now. When the nest broke away from the house, the wasp walked near my head and I decided that discretion really is the better part of bravery. Shortly after landing the wasp’s slap and insistence on low overflights near my face, I turned and headed for the hills, determined to give the wasp its space to deal with the experience.
Or plan retaliation. I’m prepared for anything at this point as my lines of battle have shifted to a new front: the return of the big black bugs that are destroying my raspberry leaves.
I wonder if there would be a contract between me and the Wasps so that I could use their aerial superiority to hold off the invasion the Beatles.
In the long run, I hope the wasps don’t hold grudges or memorize faces like crows can. I want them to just learn that they can’t live under the awning and just move on. Bees are okay with me – they’re a bit cuddly, after all – but wasps are too big an X-factor.
I don’t trust insects with thrust swords.
