Assassin At Work. Lumix M4/3 20mm
On Thursday last, America's birthday, I had planned to light up the grill, smoke egg plants, summer squash, and grill some sausages. This was to be the first barbecue of the summer.
My big grill lives under a tarpaulin, and under the grill was half a bag of charcoal left over from last summer. Off came the tarpaulin, and a cloud of yellow jacket wasps erupted from the bag. I was able to wheel the grill away to the side, leaving the charcoal bag exposed - and only got stung once on the hand...
On Saturday, I started looking for exterminators, and was lucky, on the second try, to find a very nice-sounding one who promised to send over an assassin today. Matthew, a veteran of 22 years murdering stinging insects, showed up punctually, armed with his bee suit and a couple of cans of instant death.
Here he is in action. The whole operation took about 15 minutes from soup to nuts. The doused bag of charcoal was swathed in a trash bag, and off he went, having ensured that there was no further buzzing emanating from the bag. We were lucky that they decided to set up shop in the charcoal, and not in the grill itself. This could have been much worse - and more expensive.
As I look at the image, I can see a few of the critters buzzing around angrily. An hour later, there are a few stragglers who must have been away from the colony, trying to work out what happened to their comfy place in their absence. I'm usually quite at ease with nature, but when it comes to occupancy of our balcony and the grill, all bets are off...
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