The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Garden abuzz with pollinators including much-maligned – but beneficial – wasps
It’s Tuesday, mid-morning, and the sun is blazing out of a cloudless sky. Why anyone would want to go to the South of France or Spain for their holidays I can’t imagine. I’d fallen sound asleep in the heat and only woke with a jerk when someone slammed a gate or some such. It reminded me I had a column to write and a deadline to meet and I struggled back into the real world once more.
An elderly, spreading white hawthorn tree growing at the foot of our garden is awash with frilly, Chantilly lacy white blossom. I stand beneath its canopy listening to the dull hum of honeybees, bumble bees, wasps – yes, they are important pollinators, too – and all the other pollinating insects feasting on the nectar. The local beekeepers are going to have some tasty honey from our garden.
Six years ago our neighbour planted a red flowering hawthorn which has striking, Bordeaux red wine blossom which contrasts with our own tree.
When we lived at the Burn House, near Edzell, an ancient lime tree growing behind the house was a feature of the gardens. It was planted more than 200 years ago, probably by General Lord Adam Gordon who established the Burn estate and built the house in 1796.
Avenues of the tall, handsome trees with heart-shaped leaves were often planted to emphasise the grandeur of the landed properties they led to.
But lime wood is lightly grained and easily worked and was used to make household items such as bowls, ladles and spurtles before these kitchen implements were made in metal. Being so close to the house, I reckon this tree wasn’t ornamental but was planted to ensure a convenient supply of the useful timber. While the tree is in blossom, this month and next, honeybees flock to its nectar-rich flowers, and with their buzzing you can almost hear it before you see it.
Wasps build their byke, or nest, in which they lay their eggs – one of the miracles of nature’s ingenuity – from chewed wood pulp mixed with their saliva. Son James lives in a wooden eco-house and when conditions are very still you can hear the wasps scraping at the wooden walls. A wasp landed beside me on our weatherworn garden seat. I couldn’t hear it scraping but I watched as it collected building material and flew off.
Because they have a painful sting wasps get a bad press which they don’t altogether deserve. When they attack us humans it is usually because we have entered their territory, which includes the insect getting
caught in clothing – or hair, as has happened to me.
Stinging is a defensive reaction, and the wasps are not just being vindictive. If you find yourself in a potentially stinging situation, stay calm – leave a wasp alone and it will leave you alone.
One of my most alarming wasp experiences was seeing one fly into Inka One’s nostril. I was rooted to the spot – what could I do? Had he reacted badly and started pawing at his muzzle he would likely have been stung on a very tender spot. Thankfully the wasp was not much taken with the dark recesses of Inka’s nose and flew out.
The reality is that wasps are beneficial insects, helping to control many of the insect pests in our gardens. They get their energy from the nectar in flowers and are important pollinators along with bees.
Sometimes it’s surprisingly easy to miss what’s going on under your nose – except
in this case it was above. For several seasons house martins have returned to the nest built in the eaves of the house, but this year there appeared to be no activity and we thought they had abandoned it. We were wrong.
House martins, along with swallows, are summer migrant visitors from South Africa. They lay two broods – sometimes three – between May and August.
We reckon there are chicks in the nest just now as we watch the adult birds tirelessly swooping in and out, feeding them. Their conspicuous white rump and forked tail make them the easiest of the swallow family to recognise in flight.
House martins live almost their entire life on the wing – even sleeping – rarely landing except to collect mud for nest building and incubating their eggs, which is by both parents. As a result they have practically lost the use of their legs which are short with small feet.
I’ve watched them on sunny summer evenings flying higher and higher, feeding on the flies and flying beetles which are swept up on the rising currents of warm air.
As a pharmacological aside – in the Middle Ages, goose dung was recommended as a remedy for wasp stings, but where on earth can you get goose dung over the counter these days? And did you know that it’s only the female wasp that stings?
Wasps help to control many of the insect pests in our gardens