A sting in the tale
I like nature.
I love the sound of the birds and the hum of the insects.
I never kill anything unless it is a tourist. Or a wasp.
Tourists are irritating feckers who clutter up the place and make the countyside look untidy. Shooting them is good sport.
But I cannot for the life of me understand wasps.
What are they for?
I have always hated them and they are the only non-human life form I go out of my way to kill.
I will go out of my way not to harm Just about any other species. I’m not saying that if I found an homeless Ebola virus, I would offer him accommodation, but you get my gist.
I am forever carefully carrying out spiders, moths and other life forms from the house and setting them free.
When I see a wasp, I see red. Or rather, I see black and yellow and automatically reach for the swatter.
This weather has brought them out in their droves. The queens all seem to be looking for nesting places, and I am massacring them at the rate of several a day. I get a kick out of the thought that killing one queen eliminates thousands of possible future generations.
I was stung by wasps as a child. But I was also stung by bees, horseflies, nettles and jellyfish, so that argument doesn’t work. I always treat bees with great tenderness, because I like them.
They say that God gave us friends by way of an apology for giving us relatives, but what are wasps here for?
And why is it that when I smash another wasp against the window pane, I often think of Mary Harney?
Big fat ugly useless creatures.
I believe they do serve a purpose, but that said I, like you, will dispatch them readilly (while treating all others with karma augmenting respect). I distinctly remember in senior infants having one crawl over my face, the teacher saying “don’t move” but I couldn’t resist. It stung me beside my right eye, the bastard. A pox on all their hives. Oh that image reminds me of a Dr. Who episode, the proper one, with Tom Baker.
It’s cockroaches for me. I hate the bastards. Don’t mind anything else. I was stung by a jellyfish a long time ago. On my arm. Left arm. In the Irish sea. Wonder if it was the same one that got you.
William Hartnell. The first Dr Who. I think.
Fire ants for me ,they emigrated from S America and now slowly taking over the world.They’re not walking they’re coming along with those bloody tourists on they’re planes and ships.
Thrifty – If you find out what their purpose is, could you let me know please?
TT – Probably the same jelly fish, if by chance he [or she?] had swum around to the south coast?
June – Are you beginning to see the sense in tourist culling?
If that giant wasp ever lands on you, you’ll be lucky to survive!
Some Queen, eh?
They kill and eat caterpillars which otherwise consume my veg. in the garden.
We’re slowly being introduced to what is affectionately called the European Wasp but none in my neck of the woods, maybe they’ve been eaten by the funnel webs, redbacks, mud wasps, or red bellied black snakes . . .ah gotta love a thing that stings . . . so what’s the purpose of a mosquito then other than spreading disease and polluting your water?
Steph – So the Queen Wasp has survived to sting another day? God help us!
Thrifty – Do they? I didn’t know that. Sorry, but I remain unmoved and will continue to slaughter the little buggers.
Baino – We don’t need mosquitoes in this country to spread disease and poison the water. We have a Health Service and local councils who are much more efficient.