Generally speaking, people don't think of wasps with the same degree of affection as they do bees, even though both can sting. It might simply be a public relations issue, but I suspect there's something more to our collective spheksophobia on the one hand and our melissophilia on the other.
Trying to explain her fear of wasps and fondness for bees, my friend Deborah insisted the latter were kind and hardworking: "They never wilfully hurt anyone, they pollinate the flowers and they make honey - what's not to love?"
In contrast, she said, wasps were vicious and unproductive: "They sting you for no reason and they don't do anything except make a pest of themselves whenever you're sitting outside having something to eat."
And thus: "If you came across a bee in distress, you would instinctively want to help. But a normal person only ever wants to swat a wasp!"
It's undoubtedly this kind of attitude that sanctifies the wanton destruction of wasp nests whenever people find them in their gardens or houses. One recalls, for example, the widely reported case from 2014 of a giant nest housing some 5000 creatures, built atop a bed in a Winchester woman's rarely used spare room, the wasps having entered through an open window and chewed through the mattress and pillows.
Even the pest controller who was called in, couldn't help but admire the amazingly beautiful nest that the insects had taken at least three months to construct. But this didn't, alas, deter him from destroying it and exterminating the entire colony with his poison spray, at the woman's request.
One also recalls the cruelty of George Orwell, who confessed to once cutting a wasp in half as it enjoyed some jam on the side of his breakfast plate; watching with gleeful fascination as a tiny stream of jam trickled out of its severed oesophagus and laughing when the insect tried to fly away and at that point realising the dreadful thing that had befallen it.
Whilst the exterminator was simply doing his job - not that this morally excuses his actions - I can't see any justification for Orwell's juvenile sadism. His intellectual point about modern man's obliviousness to having had his soul cut away, doesn't make one forget the heartless brutality that gave rise to the analogy.
Thankfully, there are those in the world, such as Thom Bonneville, Director of the Animal Interfaith Alliance (AIA), who call upon us to spare the wasps and show care, concern and compassion for all living creatures, regardless of their size or whether they benefit us in any way.
Note: readers who wish to know more about the AIA can visit their website by clicking here.
Even the pest controller who was called in, couldn't help but admire the amazingly beautiful nest that the insects had taken at least three months to construct. But this didn't, alas, deter him from destroying it and exterminating the entire colony with his poison spray, at the woman's request.
One also recalls the cruelty of George Orwell, who confessed to once cutting a wasp in half as it enjoyed some jam on the side of his breakfast plate; watching with gleeful fascination as a tiny stream of jam trickled out of its severed oesophagus and laughing when the insect tried to fly away and at that point realising the dreadful thing that had befallen it.
Whilst the exterminator was simply doing his job - not that this morally excuses his actions - I can't see any justification for Orwell's juvenile sadism. His intellectual point about modern man's obliviousness to having had his soul cut away, doesn't make one forget the heartless brutality that gave rise to the analogy.
Thankfully, there are those in the world, such as Thom Bonneville, Director of the Animal Interfaith Alliance (AIA), who call upon us to spare the wasps and show care, concern and compassion for all living creatures, regardless of their size or whether they benefit us in any way.
Note: readers who wish to know more about the AIA can visit their website by clicking here.
