My tiny, wonky shed has new owners. I have never had a garden shed before, so I wasn’t expecting to give it away so quickly, but once they moved in I accepted it was rightly theirs – for this summer at least. I have never had such a good view of a wasp nest. I peer in most weeks to marvel at its progress.
It is quite exquisite in its grey, papery layers. Where there was once a solitary queen, now there are many more insects building and foraging, so the nest is only going to grow in size. These are common wasps, Vespula vulgaris, and the colony will survive into early autumn, until the first queen dies. At this point, in a fit of genetics and anger, the worker wasps will revolt against the collective and start to lay their own eggs.
Without the queen, the strict rules of the colony fall apart, no one goes to work foraging for the collective good and everyone gets hungry. Cannibalism sets in and some workers start ripping up the nest, trying to carry off their own brood. Everyone left behind freezes. In this light, when you meet an angry wasp in the summer, imagine it as this: a distraught empty-nester flooded with destructive hormones on a quest for sugar to get drunk on. The whole nest will be empty by winter and it won’t be revisited next year.
While things are running smoothly, however, the growing colony needs food, and lots of it, which means the workers are busy collecting protein to fatten larvae: caterpillars, spiders and other soft-bodied insects. Wasps are excellent garden predators and will be doing all sorts of good work.
Yes, the adults’ love of sugar means that drinking cider or eating strawberries and ice-cream nearby will attract their attention. But years ago someone told me that if you talk to wasps with good intention, they really do listen. I have found this to work, so if one comes by, you must say firmly but politely: “Please leave,” without raising your voice or flapping about. They always do.
• Alys Fowler is a gardener and freelance writer
• This article was amended on 24 July 2023. A previous version referred to “worker bees” when “worker wasps” was intended.
