Wasps

It got to be Fall when I wasn’t looking. I know it isn’t really Fall yet, but I noticed a tree going red and the air is already cooling down. I’m not the only one who has noticedthe impending change of season. The wasps have noticed it as well. They’ve begun to disappear. Today I figured out where they all went. Apparently wasps hibernate in sheltered nooks. They like wood. My playset is made of wooden nooks. My neighbor pointed out three wasps in one of the nooks and so I found a spray can and went hunting. What I found made my skin crawl. Some of the nooks were filled to over flowing with clumps of wasps. It was so amazing that I took a picture. But I don’t want to creep out the unwary, so the picture is behind a cut. Peek if you wish.

Note that the wasps appear to have taken over the home of a spider. I can’t figure out if that spider is frustrated at the invasion, or thinking himself set for the winter. When I was taking the picture, I was so busy focusing on the wasps that I did not even see that great big spider there. The camera had to be mere inches away from those wasps to take the picture. So I snapped it, hoping that the flash would not anger the wasps. I was lucky. It didn’t. Why commit this act of insanity? Because my friend runs a little site called Insectpod. Every day he posts new pictures of cool bugs. This was a fantastic bug picture and I had to take it for him. I then drenched everything with wasp killer. I hunted in every corner of the playset and found several more clumps. I sprayed them all.

I like nature, but I don’t like large clumps of stinging nature hanging out where my kids play.