Nest of Polistes exclamans, or the Paper Wasp.
Austin, TX
When I was four years old my life was a bucolic paradise. Living with my brother, parents, grandparents and my great grandmother on an old dairy farm an hour NW of Boston, my summer days were spent outdoors. Digging in the vast garden my grandparents maintained, pulling carrots and eating them still dusted with rich loam and picking wildflowers in our hayfields was my world. I so loved to be outside that I wouldn't pee indoors unless someone made me. Sometimes I crawled out the bathroom window when I had been brought to use the toilet and went in the bushes anyway.
There were also many dangers to be sure. The barn was built in the 1690's, 40 years before the house, and presented serious hazards. One of my earliest warnings was about one corner of the hay loft my dad fell through years earlier. We used to walk sideways, pushing at the floor with our feet and inching as close as possible to the hole dad left.
In winter a danger was the skating pond and thin ice. I fell through one New Years day while recklessly testing the ice. It had been a warm winter with little snow. We hoped to skate that day and the clear spot above the spring looked remarkably thick, and I knew better but I did it anyway. My recollection of going under, my heavy jacket and snow pants sponging up the icy water, is a vivid picture in my mind. Stinging cold filled my ears and the sound of my best friend yelling became muffled by bubbles and my own heartbeat. I pulled myself up and over the edge of the hole I created, ice cracking and breaking beneath my feet as I ran to the shore. I can still see the look on my Uncle Jack's face as we burst through the door, half frozen and turning blue. Everyone stopped mid sentence. His sweater was a blonde lambswool V-neck and he was drinking whiskey, neat.
A week later we were playing hockey.
When I was four, though, my favorite activity of all was to "drive" the old tractor from the 1930's that sat at the edge of the 10 acre field, behind the woodpile. The Bakelite steeringwheel turned just enough to make it real and the pedals still returned when pushed. It was on this tractor, refusing to let my best friend (the same who witnessed my fall through the ice) take a turn at the wheel, that I met my nemesis. [The bald faced hornet./]. Long story short, I disturbed a nest of them under the tractor seat, got stung 8 or 10 times, and had an anaphylactic reaction. We barely made it to the hospital 30 minutes away. I likely would have died if it hadn't been for a policeman who pulled my mother over for speeding the backroads. He escorted us to the emergency room at top speed, calling ahead to forewarn the doctors. Had we arrived minutes later I would not be here to tell the tale.
Pass gingerly around the nest for more...
Because of this event I took allergy shots from four until fourteen, most of those years every week. If the garden and the barn were the loves of my childhood, sitting at the allergist for thirty minutes waiting for a measurable reaction was the bane of it. I hated those shots more than anything, not because they hurt but for the waiting. It was a cruel waste of time.
Perhaps understandably, all of this made me afraid of bees for a really long time. I panicked whenever they were near. Incredibly, I was only ever stung twice more in my life, once by a honeybee and once by yellow jackets. Being allergic exclusively to wasp/vespid (hornets and wasps) these were nuisance events but didn't help my anxiety. It took me years to get over my fear of bees.
Like, 30 of them.
Nowadays, I am the one telling small children, at home and at school, how not to respond to bees so as to avoid being stung. When they come around I do not panic. I have even been known to approach the nest as closely as possible before they launch. I have also been seen running away as they do.
Polistes exclamans paper nest, rear view.
The weather has finally changed for good here in Austin and winter is pretty much here as far as critters like wasps are concerned. The nest featured here was in the corner of my garage overhang. They started building it in June and abandoned it last week. I don't kill nests anymore, as much as my neighbors may hate that fact. Wasps serve a purpose and I have found the modicum of respect they demand from their human companions is a healthy lesson for everybody in how the world actually works. When you think about it, it is my home that is invading their space, not he other way around. Would I kill a nest that became dangerous? You bet, and I have, but only of necessity.
A few years ago I stopped going after them. My motivation was collecting their nests, I didn't want to poison them. I had been collecting nests of all kinds for years, even hiking deep into the forest months after encountering a live nest to collect the abandoned one. As bees make a new home each year, this has no impact on their lifecycle.
Something has happened around my home since I quit killing the bees. Where they had once been dependably hostile, over the past 5 years they have become much more reasonable. Used to be I couldn't walk on the side of my house without getting attacked. No longer. They are noticeably less hostile. Neighbors have noticed, friends have commented on it. My kids have recognized it, too. It's a real thing, and legitimate or not, I ascribe it to my stopping killing them. I told a pest control guy this last summer. He told me to stop smoking so much reefer.
Either way, I am glad to have them here and glad they are not the menace they once were. I love to collect their nests and my kids are learning a thing or two about life. It's an issue of respect, as I tell them often, and that's a trait we need more of in this world.
Side view. Beautiful paper making.
Further reading:
Polistes exclamans (paper wasp)
Texas A&M Agrilife Extension: Wasps and nuisance control
Bug Eric
Bug Guide.net
Thanks for reading.
- bastrop
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