In sympathy for ADE's attack of the monster wasps yesterday, I took a wasp shot today.

Despite its reputation as a villain, the wasp in itself is not all bad. Wasps play an important role in controlling other harmful pests. Wasp grubs need protein to grow and so the queen wasps hunt for insects to feed their growing grubs. Whilst the nest is growing, worker wasps continue to hunt for insects to feed the grubs. In return, the grubs feed the worker wasps with a sweet sticky liquid. As the nest grows, so more and more insects are caught by the worker wasps. In this way, many garden pests are kept under control.

In mid to late summer there is a change in the wasp nest. New queen wasps hatch and they leave the nest to mate. The old queen wasp stops laying eggs and before long there are no more grubs to be fed. The worker wasps are then left without their sweet sticky liquid food. By this stage there may be as many as 5000 hungry worker wasps in the nest. This is when the wasp becomes a pest. The workers start to forage for sweet foods and this brings them into conflict with people. Being hunters by nature, wasps are all too ready to sting to get their food and when that food an ice cream or a beer, this is when wasps are at their most dangerous.

The moral of this story - ADE must have a sweet head!