L U N A T A L K with Eva Moon

Live and Let Hive?

August 8, 2009 on 8:24 am | Join the conversation. You know you want to. | In Food, Found, General Musing

Wasps have built a rather impressive nest in the eaves near our front door. I know I ought to get rid of it. Wasps are the enemy right? But the thing is, they are keeping to themselves as far as I can tell. I walk right past it several times a day but I’ve never encountered a wasp at person-level. No one else has been accosted by them either. Honestly, I’m not a fan of stinging insects, but I want to just let them stay as long as they behave.

Am I missing something here? Will they get ornery as the summer wanes? Will they bring in their low-life cousins to squat on our property? Will their nest harm the wood? Do wasps do any good in the ecosystem? Are they pollinators, like bees? Or disease-carrying menaces like mosquitoes?

When my kids were little in Atlanta, school started up late one summer with the discovery of an enormous wasp nest built right on the glass of the second grade classroom window. It was amazing. The kids had a full cross-section inside view of the inner workings and the whole school was buzzing with excitement about it. You could see everything about wasp society in action. The classroom was in a far corner of the building away from the playground and parking lot. The teacher (and most of the kids and some of the parents) lobbied for a stay of execution. But of course the admin and legal types got involved and the nest was gone within a week.

Maybe this is a chance to atone for that past injustice.

Or maybe they’re pernicious pests that ought not to be encouraged.