wasps and worms

I thought I was finally getting the hang of the worm bin I set up before and was beginning to add large quantities of kitchen waste. Every time I took the lid of a mass of worms tried to bury from the light. Recently my kids discovered jam making and badgered me to buy fruit. So off I went and bought punnets full of strawberries which sat in the fridge for two days and went off. I threw them in the worm bin which has encouraged hundreds of wasps. I hate wasps.

When I was a teenager I was sat upstairs on the front seat of a full double decker bus. I could see the wasps on the front window buzzing around. Occasionally one would swoop across the seat at me and I’d try not to fly up in the air. Then one landed on me and I tried to brush it away gently but it kept coming back. In the end it flew up and behind me out of the way. A short while later I felt something crawl down my back through the neck of my top. I tried to arch away from it hoping I wouldn’t squash it. I was in my terrified creepy crawly stage but trying not to look like a raving lunatic on the bus! Of course it stung me and wasn’t satisfied with one sting but went on to sting several times across my back and my dignified appearance was the furthest thing from my mind as I bounced and jumped about.

Anyway, it means that if I see a wasp now, I normally run, arms flailing and squealing in the opposite direction. OK maybe that’s exaggerated but I try all evasive manoeuvres. And now I have wasps in small swarms just feet from my back door. The aren’t happy staying there either but want to come in the house and the car and follow you around. The lid to the wormery has gone brittle (cheap but very effective worm bin) and the clips on the edges have snapped off which means I can’t shut the lid snugly and the wasps are crawling through the sides. I noticed them last week but there has been more wasps each day. This morning I thought it was quiet on the waspish front as there weren’t any flying about. I wanted  to gently open the lid to check and then move the wormery down the garden away from the house and back yard. Of course, as soon as I flipped the lid up a miniature cloud of yellow and black burst into the air accompanied by my hasty retreat.  Once they’d settled back down to a particularly decomposed grape, I hesitantly approached to return the lid. Managing this with thumping chest and running shoes warmed up I reached for the broom to push the lid a little more firmly from a distance and managed to push a bloody big hole through the top!

Today DFS has had to shoo over 20 out of the kitchen and I was complaining about them to my neighbour who told me that they’re having the same problem but on the other side of the street. So maybe my worm bin isn’t to blame. This afternoon as I came through the back door from being at the lotty, I noticed a shadow on the rim of my baseball cap right above my eye and I realised what it was just as DFS went to warn me that I had a hitchhiker. With lightning speed I’d managed to whack the front of my cap with my palm and realise that it wasn’t going to come off as my pony tail was through the fastening hole at the back. A split second later I’d gained almost panic status trying to rip off my cap without touching it and within 3 seconds of being in the back door I’d hurled the cap with the offending insect right at DFS! Luckily the wasp had taken quite a impact as it hit either DFS or the kitchen cupboard and was walking around slightly concussed instead of trying to revenge itself for it’s treatment – get em before they get you I now feel.

Although I don’t like killing things and I know they do a good job, I have put up a wasp trap. I’ve baited it with overripe strawberries in the hope that it will distract them from the wormery and I can begin using it again for our household waste, or move the wormery or, if the trap is very successful, move the trap away from the house.

Once it got dark tonight, I’ve taken the lid off the wormery, placed a folded towel over the top and replaced the lid. I hope that stops them going in. I also moved the trap to the other side of the garden. Fingers crossed for tomorrow.