No drinking outdoors if you want to avoid close encounter with autumn wasps

BEWARE the wasps of autumn... that’s my advice, anyway, after getting stung on the inside of my top lip – very painful – last weekend.

Some might suggest it was selfinflicted. I was having a lunchtime drink out of doors, and yes it was alcoholic, when the dozy late October wasp dropped in for a sip.

My dad, who fancies himself as a bit of a joker, always says that there is no need to complain about an insect in your glass, or a fly in your soup, as they hardly drink anything, being so small. How we laugh.

But a wasp in your glass is a pretty big hazard and a wasp sting inside the mouth is no joke.

In fact, checking on the NHS 111 website I learned that any sting, wasp or bee, inside the mouth or throat or near the eye is a potential medical emergency.

The risk that the sting promotes a response from the body’s defences and swells up can impede the airways, apparently – justifying a 999 call and a trip to A & E.

Fortunately a couple of anti-histamine tablets held back the swelling and I carried on with my day, looking a little like I’d been punched in the mouth. I put a call in to our local Minor Injuries Unit the next day and was told that if my airways were going to get blocked it would have already happened and to keep taking the tablets and rinsing my mouth out with salty water for a few days.

Wasps are one of those creatures which are hard to love, although they do perform a useful role in the garden, managing other pests, like greenfly and caterpillars, so protecting vulnerable crops.

After one of the mildest starts to the autumn for years – in a year that will go down in history for high temperatures – wasps have clearly thrived and with no sign of any frost or cold snap to speak of, they are still very active.

There is nothing like a glass of fizzy wine to attract the sensitive scent detectors of a hungry wasp, especially with much of the insect’s natural food in shorter supply right now.

This one made a beeline – or rather a waspline – for my glass and was still guzzling when I unknowingly took a last gulp of the drink and got a mouthful of stripey black and yellow insect for my trouble.

Unlike honeybees, which have one chance to sting and then die as a result, wasps can sting multiple times. The one I unwillingly took on board seems to have struck just once, which is perhaps just as well. Lucky too that I didn’t swallow him as a sting on the inside of my throat, on his way down, could have been even more hazardous.

The moral... no drinking out of doors – and keep your mouth shut.