These past two years we have been overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of wasps; mud daubers, red wasps, rice field wasps, paper wasps, meat bees, hornets, yellow jackets and those freakin’ black paper wasps with the yellow stripes. I’m sure that I’m forgetting one or two other types in my rant…

Recently, as we sat outside, looking at the orchard, enjoying our time, we were constantly harassed by a paper wasp that was building a nest in the siding of our house. Being thoroughly annoyed by this creature as it crashed into me, then into the house, then finally into a gap in the siding, I decided to closely observe the little creature.

The more I watched, the more I realized that wasps are the drunk drivers of the insect world. They bounce off of everything as they make a tortured and twisted “line” to where ever it is that they are going. It’s even worse when they’re building a nest, carrying a hunk of saliva and chewed up wood or mud. That extra gob of stuff really tips their navigation from haphazard to straight-up hazard.

Knowing that we didn’t have the motivation to eliminate the nest just yet, we tried to slow the nest building progress by jamming rosemary branches (it was nearby) into the hole.  That didn’t work. So, we jammed even more rosemary into the hole and it still didn’t work. It slowed them down a little, but they found their merry way through the tangle. Soon enough, the wasps would pop out of the hole, peek around a bit, then inelegantly fly off.

Fortunately, neither of us got stung that day, but I can’t tell you how many hit-and-runs there were…