Waspitality

Last year we had a huge wasp's nest in our loft, about 3 feet across. Had to have the bee-man out, too big to tackle ourselves. But we never did anything about the empty nest stretching across between the rafters. In the heat this week, it finally disintegrated. We had a huge box full of the papery remains, very hard to contain as it's so incredibly light.

Even the remains are fascinating. You can clearly see the strata built by individual wasps as they bring wood pulp to the nest; their powerful jaws bite off chunks of wood which soften when it reacts with their saliva. Back at the nest, they release the pulp and pat it into place with their front feet. The different types of wood brought back show in the different colours of the layers, bits of timber, fence posts, in our case, rafters.

The nest might have been the first high rise construction in history, as the wasps stack rows and rows of cells, each slanting downwards. The Queen wasp lays an egg in every cell so that it sticks to the papery walls and doesn't fall out in spite of the downward slant. The door to the whole nest is always a hole at the bottom.

Nests are only used once, generally winter temperatures in this country kill off any remaining wasps, except for the Queen, so the whole process starts again the following year. Bad enough moving house once after ten years, goodness knows the flat spin I'd be in if I had to contruct my own place each year.

Try it Large and see even more. Not shot in B&W, this is how it is.



The wasp and all his numerous family
I look upon as a major calamity.
He throws open his nest with prodigality,
But I distrust his waspitality.

Ogden Nash