Were you not to have a “good reason” to kill a German wasp, you could be fined up to R800,000. But that’s in Germany where all wild life is protected – here I am encouraged to do so; the City of Cape Town’s Invasive Species Unit is even prepared to come to my house and do it for me. Out of respect for their job description and apparent dedication, I may allow this to happen, but if they prove tardy I am more than prepared to engage the invader: a beekeeper’s headgear is at my disposal, a hose will be in one hand and an aerosol in the other. All this adds up to the German Wasp no longer being a threat to indigenous bees and grandchildren.
“Wasps” has been a word on the fridge for a number of days now; my wife put it there. “I am not having Isla (18 months, granddaughter) here as long as that nest’s up there.” A thought crossed my mind – no, that would be selfish and inconsiderate – and I began a search on (safer than search for) small black-and-yellow striped objects which fly about and sting those who interfere in their lives. They had been around for some time, doing reconnaissance flights low over the lawn, and were relatively interesting until my face took on a different shape just because of a gentle tap on the gutter where a number of them were hovering.
What the internet search revealed were two wasps of the yellow-and-black striped variety, so similar that a brave magnifying-glass would be needed to tell them apart. Both were exotic and bore identities: European Paper Wasp and German Wasp.
Never mind the identities, a wasp is a wasp, a whiplash of a word. Like a whip, a wasp has a sting. It is nasty, dangerous, sore and only good when it’s dead. They don’t have much going for them – unless they live in Germany – especially when compared with bees. Yes, bees sting and are equally dangerous for those with an allergic reaction to such, but their sting is a noble sacrifice: they die in defence of their hive, a hive from which comes honey, a food for gods. Wasps sting, and sting and sting – and that’s not the pain – they sting their whole lives long. And when they’ve stung, where do they go back to? Their nest, a dystopian collection of desiccated looking hexagonal cells out of which emerge, not something good like honey, but more nasty wasps.
In 1946, at the first sight of the new scooter he had had designed, Enrico Piaggio exclaimed, “Sembra una vespa!”, striking a blow for wasps and Vespas. They have ridden the world ever since, sporting a thicker rear part connected to the front end by a narrow waist which, as any fashion magazine will tell you, is wasp-like. Yes, wasps have some redeeming features: largely carnivorous, they dispose of thousands of insects which would otherwise be whizzing about your head and dropping into your wine; like bees, they pollinate flowers, but on a much smaller scale. Fortunately for wasps, too, the angry French protesters who recently gained much bad press were known as “les gilets jaunes”, the yellow vests. Had they been called “the yellow jackets”, it would not have done the most common species in North America any favours.
At present, yellow jackets are the least of the problems North America’s having with the family Vespidae. The recent arrival of the Killer Asian Hornet has beekeepers running for their lives, and that of their hives. If wasps have a nasty-sounding name, hornets have it with horns on. They sting more sore and more lasting. They are bigger, too, especially this Asian number: they can decimate a hive, leaving just headless bodies of bees.
With so much against them, you understand why wasps may sting people. But as a rule they don’t, unless interfered with (like tapping the gutter) or provoked. But that does not carry much weight against a grandmother’s concern for the vulnerability of her granddaughter. Which leaves me, grandfather, with a number of choices: leave them and have no grandchildren around and a waspy wife, kill them myself, an interesting prospect, or hope that the City of Cape Town’s previous slogan “The City Works For You” may still apply.
Coward that I am, the first two fall away. It’s the City. The exact species identified, the nest location pin-pointed, my address and availability made known, it is now a question of who strikes first. My money is on the wasps.
