A European wasp landed on Beth’s kitchen windowsill. She stopped washing the dishes at the sink. Casually at first, she studied the insect. It was large and bright and boldly coloured. Striped like a tiger, its beauty both surprised and captivated her. On closer inspection, she could appreciate the exquisite delicacy of its body formation. It buzzed off the sill. Beth felt disappointed as it flew from view. True, the wasp was an imported pest, yet Beth considered its position with an open and fair mind. Yes, it was competing with native insect populations. Yes, it was a nuisance to picnickers and campers. However as with all introduced species, it was blameless; its presence was due to man’s interference in the natural order of things.
As she gazed after the wasp, another came into view. This one carried something in its strong jaws. Beth recognised its prey instantly – a glorious Emperor Gum moth caterpillar. It struggled desperately, resplendent in its emerald-green coat and bright red standards. Beth caught her breath. As a child she vividly recalled the giant, ancient Peppercorn trees that loomed, protective and sacred, in the lane behind her suburban house. They stood firmly between the family’s weatherboard home and the noise of the train line. Showing an astonishing adaptation to the lack of Gum trees in the inner city, the Emperor Gum moths laid their eggs on the Peppercorn leaves and their caterpillars thrived. Beth was intrigued by them. She recalled the bench seats in the old tramcar in her backyard were cluttered with various jars containing sprigs of freshly picked Peppercorn leaves, laden with eggs and caterpillars at different stages of their life cycle. Nurturing these larvae and watching them cocoon, inspired in Beth a lifelong reverence for the natural world. Her love for these particular caterpillars was rooted in her most cherished childhood memories.
As she watched in horror, the wasp lost its grip on its plump prize. With her heart in her mouth, Beth rushed outside to find the caterpillar on the path outside her kitchen window. She tried to gently pick it up. Rearing on its fleshy hind legs, the caterpillar brandished its mandibles to confront this new threat. She noticed that it was injured, where the wasp’s powerful jaws had attempted to crush its head. Cradling the damaged insect in her hand, Beth tenderly carried it to the edge of her garden, and placed it on the foliage of a young Ironbark tree. She felt comforted by the rescue. As she made her way back to the house she caught a fleeting glimpse of a European wasp hovering among the bright scarlet blossoms of a geranium in the garden. The sight caused her an unexpected chill. Although her charitable thoughts about innocently introduced species remained, the caterpillar incident hardened her heart a little. In an absentminded fashion she thought about wasp control measures. Perhaps she should get some sort of a trap? These vague thoughts soon took on a clear focus. She must eliminate the wasps.
Returning inside, Beth slowly ascended the spiral staircase to her bedroom. She stopped to gaze from the window across to the forested mountainside beyond. Windows were great time wasters for Beth. Her large old home boasted many full-length picture windows. Heavy dusty pelmets shielded the tops of luxuriant drapes. The drapes were always pulled wide – except in the dead of winter when the house was like the den of some hibernating animal. Newly married and already pregnant, Beth and her wealthy, handsome husband Mark, had purchased their home with great hope and expectations, some thirteen years ago. For a period they experienced a secure and loving marriage, punctuated by the birth of Sarah and then Rick three years later. Apart from the pressure applied by her pretentious and hard to please mother-in-law, Vanessa, Beth had little to complain about. Her secluded mountain hideaway provided her with the peaceful lifestyle she’d always dreamed of, and the space to indulge her love of horses. Motherhood came as an unexpected but blinding joy, utterly captivating and fulfilling her. Mark, on the other hand, experienced little of the satisfaction felt by his wife. Long commutes to his city accounting practice and an ever increasing workload reduced the amount of time he was able to spend with his young family. His mother, Vanessa, had instilled in him from childhood a fierce competitiveness and driving ambition that was constantly fuelled by the cutthroat rivalry among the Partners at his firm. Beth regarded his increasingly frantic climb up the career ladder with dismay. Inevitably they grew apart and had finally separated several years ago. However Beth was on the whole a remarkably calm and self-contained woman. She’d coped well with finding herself single again at thirty-eight.
Beth pulled on a clean jumper, tugged briefly with a comb at her short red hair and headed back downstairs. As usual, she went out the back door, tired of dodging the honey bees that swarmed busily over the climbing roses festooning the brickwork at the front of the house. Full of purpose, she drove into town to visit the local hardware store in search of wasp traps. There were lots.
They all worked on roughly the same principle – a chamber to fill with some sort of bait and an entrance which would not be an obvious escape route for the insects once inside. Baits could be either sweet or savoury. Sugar, honey or jam in a little water worked. Wine or orange juice left to ferment was also good. Alternatively, dog food out of a can was perfectly suitable. Beth made her choice and drove straight home. When in town, she usually stopped to do some shopping or have a coffee at the corner cafe. Not today. She felt oddly single-minded.
Back at home she considered possible baits, and settled on honey-water. She hung the trap on the Lasiandra tree, right outside the kitchen window. Then she returned inside. As she waited and watched she let her thoughts wander. The season was unusually dry and the family relied on tank water. At times they bucketed bath water onto the garden and into the animal troughs. She’d done so this very morning. As usual, the water troughs were a gathering-place for a throng of shining damsel and dragonflies, darting to and fro on rainbow wings. But this morning, these aerial acrobats were joined by the odd tiger striped wasp, gingerly drinking at the brackish water. Their presence deepened her sense of unease.
Standing at the kitchen sink, she resumed washing the dishes with one eye on her new trap. There was not a wasp in sight. She felt a pang of disappointment. The ringing phone startled her. It was Mark, who now lived in a fashionable inner eastern suburb with his new girlfriend and baby – a ninety-minute drive away from Beth’s bushland retreat. Despite the couple’s lengthy separation, for some reason neither one of them had yet sought a divorce. They’d developed an amicable working relationship revolving around their children – Sarah who was now twelve and Rick who was ten years of age. Mark was to pick the kids up that evening for a regular weekend access visit. He was always completely reliable in this regard. Beth agreed to have them ready by five o’clock. Rick would not be happy, thought Beth. Lately he seemed to attend these weekends at his Dad’s house with greater and greater reluctance. When she questioned him about it, Rick just muttered something about his Dad having ‘lost the plot’. What on earth did that mean? Sarah though, would be as delighted as ever. She had always been Daddy’s little girl. Her new baby brother, Chance, was still a novelty and his mother, Helen, tended to spoil Sarah. Helen was Mark’s secretary in his accountancy practice before the separation. Beth suspected that Helen’s relationship with Mark overlapped her own at some point. The girl was pretty, blonde and at twenty-five was younger than Mark by more than a decade. Beth found it hard to take her seriously. Still, she was grateful that Helen always made her kids feel welcome. Apart from that, the younger woman occupied very few of Beth’s thoughts.
Beth busied herself packing the children’s things. It was the start of a long weekend and she did not expect them home until Monday evening. Every time she passed through the kitchen she invariably stopped to look at the trap. Still no wasps. When the kids tumbled in the front door after school, she had their bags all ready. Sarah was a sweet, intelligent girl who always tried her best to maintain the peace within her divided family. She had red hair like her mother, which she wore in a short bob. Her eyes too were like Beth’s; serious, green eyes that observed the world from beneath her straight fringe. Beth watched Sarah’s valiant attempts to keep everybody happy with a mixture of genuine admiration and gentle amusement. The only person Sarah had little patience for was her brother, Rick. Rick was small for his ten years with blonde curly hair and melting brown eyes like his father. He was an emotional and highly imaginative boy, who was inclined to get himself into trouble by speaking his mind, regardless of the appropriate time or place. Thus he remained a source of constant embarrassment to his polite sister. Ever hungry, Rick made a sandwich and noticed the gleaming clear Perspex orb hanging in the garden. Initially he was intrigued by the idea of the trap and watched it for several minutes. However no wasps quickly led to no interest. Not so with Beth. She wanted to observe the first contact and continued to gaze at the trap long after Mark picked up the kids. Only fading light drove her from the window for a quick meal of leftover pizza. By nine o’clock, she retired for the night with a glass of wine and a good book.
Beth rose early the next morning. She worked part-time as a riding instructor at a local equestrian school. She enjoyed the hustle and bustle of the Academy. Today she took a group of three young riders and worked with them on their own horses. They were a talented bunch and it pleased Beth to watch them slowly but surely establish that elusive bond that develops, with time, between rider and mount. After the lesson, dusty, tired and happy, Beth headed for home. She intended to go for a ride herself that afternoon. The long weekend stretched invitingly before her.
After a light lunch, she cleared the dishes and went into the kitchen. One glance out of the window riveted her to the spot. Buzzing uncertainly within the confines of the small trap were half a dozen wasps. Circumnavigating the trap, with interest, were half a dozen more. Beth was fascinated. She watched the increasing panic of the trapped insects with decidedly mixed emotions. Hovering in confusion, just millimetres above the sweet liquid, one wasp dipped a little too low. Beth was surprised at the energy with which the wasp began to swim. Her first instinct was to rush out and rescue it, as she frequently did with butterflies and beetles that fell into the birdbaths dotted around her large garden. But she couldn’t do that, could she? The whole point of the exercise was to kill the wasps. She deliberately set the trap for this very purpose. All she could do was to watch, as the powerful insect swam and swam, hoping to gain some foothold on the sides. But the walls were smooth and curved, designed to give no purchase to tiny hooked feet. A second, then a third wasp hit the water. One managed, by sheer wing power, to lift itself out of the surface tension. Momentarily Beth thrilled that it was safe. But of course it was doomed. After several minutes of fruitless, frantic buzzing within the trap, each insect, due to a combination of battered wings and exhaustion, dropped into the water.
Beth could watch no longer. She made herself a coffee and left the kitchen. The wasps were just doing their job, she thought sadly to herself, collecting food for their queen and larvae. Curiosity compelled her to take a book about insects off her shelf. She owned quite a good collection of field guides, which helped her to identify the myriad of birds, small mammals, and invertebrates with which she shared her small property. She wondered if European wasps organised their nests like Honeybees.
“Vespula Germanica” she read.
‘Each nest is founded by a mated female, who rears the first generation of all-female brood by herself. These become workers and take over the task of nest building and of collecting food for the larvae. The queen then confines herself to egg laying. Colony defence and the day to day perils of foraging often result in the death of these worker wasps.’
Beth felt genuinely inspired by this apparent self-sacrifice and devotion to duty. She imagined the wasps, setting-out each day, some never to return. A bit like bomber pilots during the war, she mused. But then her mind returned to the ruthless attack she’d witnessed on her beloved Emperor Gum caterpillar. She guessed that few native insects would be a match for these powerful alien marauders. The thought helped her to rationalise her actions. Yet she still avoided looking at the trap. She left the house to go for a ride, leaving the helpless wasps to continue their futile swim into oblivion. Without the children around, the weekends always seemed to pass slowly. Beth found herself slipping into a kind of slow motion. She rose late the next morning. What a luxury, just suiting oneself.
Without the motivation of breakfasts and ferrying the children here and there, time held no sway over her. Breakfasting out on the verandah, she lazily planned her day. Solitude suited her. She wasn’t one to crave companionship.
The jam on her toast attracted a wasp. Her hand actually brushed against it as she reached for a slice. Startled, she jumped to her feet and started to swat at the insect. After several ineffective attempts to drive away the intruder she conceded defeat and returned inside. She checked the trap. A dozen dead wasps floated in the water. Now they were dead she felt pleased. The ambivalence of the previous afternoon evaporated.
The clear, brisk morning air promised a glorious October day. So Beth, donning old clothes, set about doing some planting in the garden. Glancing back at the house she noted the ivy covering the walls. Picturesque though it was, she’d lately been thinking of having it removed. It flowered profusely last autumn, and the dozens of little ivy seedlings sprouting from her pathways, could also be colonising the nearby bush gullies. In competition with native vegetation, the ivy was potentially a serious environmental pest. Still, it would be a pity, especially in summer, when its cool green mantle insulated the house from the fierce sun. Flowering climbing roses climbed up the ivy, using it like a trellis to scale the bricks. She stopped to admire the bright beauty of their blooms. On second glance, she noticed something odd about the roses. As usual, they seemed to be covered with dozens of Honeybees, busily collecting nectar from the heavy crop of vivid pink flowers. A closer look revealed that these insects were in fact European wasps. Not a single bee remained. Beth was incredulous. During the course of one short week, the invaders had utterly displaced the legion of Honeybees. As she neared the wall for a closer inspection, several of the wasps buzzed in her direction, forcing her to sprint for the safety of the house. She need not have worried. Foraging wasps are, by and large, innocuous, preoccupied creatures, much more inclined to fly away than fight. It is only when the nest is threatened, that they display the group aggression that they are infamous for, attacking intruders and stinging en masse.
Thoroughly unnerved, Beth resolved immediately to increase her trapping rate, so she looked on the internet to research wasp control measures. To her dismay, she found that the only really effective control was to destroy the nest. But where was it? A quick inspection of her home’s exposed timber eaves revealed nothing. She was reduced to eliminating the insects one by one. One web page gave simple instructions for making traps out of drink bottles. So starting with orange juice bottles salvaged from the recycle bin, Beth commenced construction. First she sliced the top off the bottles just before the neck narrowed. Then she inverted the top, inserting it into the opening to form a funnel entrance which fitted snugly against the sides. A little glue to finish and she had a homemade trap along the lines of the commercially manufactured one. Enormously pleased with herself, Beth continued her production line until she had seven such contraptions. Now came the decision about the bait. She’d read somewhere that, despite the adult’s fondness for sweet things, they fed their larvae exclusively on protein. Opening her pantry she examined her stock of tinned pet food. Beth owned two dogs and a particularly finicky Chinchilla cat. There was a wide choice of meat and fish. Deciding to conduct a little experiment, she placed a variety of bait types in the traps. She then secured them with tape, side by side, to the tree outside her kitchen window. Standing at the sink, she soon observed several wasps hovering about the bottles. Within minutes, the fish-bait trapped several of them. The insects could not escape. Feeling encouraged, she now used her imagination to create new baits. A little tub of pineapple pieces came next. Well past its use-by date, she found it bubbling with natural fermentation at the back of her fridge. Orange juice in another, cola in another, a combination of dog-food and honey in another – with intense interest she noted the individual success rates of the various baits. Time slipped away.
The sound of the phone startled her. Feeling a stab of irritation, she paused in her observations to answer it. The cheerful voice of her best friend, Irene, greeted her. Beth glanced at the clock and was surprised to see it was so late.
“Hi Irene,” she answered absent mindedly, her mind still on the little drama playing outside her kitchen window.
“Sure, come over if you like. I’m not doing anything.”
Irene and Beth had met at school and supported each other steadfastly through life’s various ups and downs. Beth was there when Irene escaped a marriage plagued by domestic violence, ‘another kind of trap’, Beth thought to herself. Likewise, Irene provided company and child-minding when Beth’s own marriage was reeling. Now happily remarried to Paul, Irene and her two children were a living example of how well a step-family could work with a little love and compromise all round.
Half an hour later, Irene rolled up the tree lined drive in her battered old Toyota Land Rover. She was slim, blonde and vivacious. Although of a similar age to Beth, Irene always seemed to Beth like a younger sister, in need to some degree of protection. Irene smoked, she drank too much, and drove too fast –she always wore her heart on her sleeve. Cautious Beth envied her friend her brimming enthusiasm for life. Beth welcomed her at the door. Irene’s children, Rebecca and Simon, were at home with Paul, whose simple, down-to-earth nature provided the perfect foil to Irene’s high spirits.
“What are you trying to do here?” Irene inquired as they poured themselves a coffee. Outside the kitchen window the array of traps reflected the rays of the late afternoon sun. A light breeze caused them to jostle together like some bizarre wind chime.
‘I must secure them more firmly,’ Beth noted to herself. The movement could deter her prey.
“I’ve got a wasp problem,” offered Beth. “I’m just trying out some different traps.”
“Goodness, you have been busy!” laughed Irene. “It looks like a wasp smorgasbord. When you do something, you sure as hell don’t do it by halves, do you!”
Although it had been a warm day, the spring evenings cooled quickly, so the two friends did not venture outside. They threw some sticks of Satay on the grill, and while Beth tossed together a salad, Irene opened the bottle of wine she always brought along on such occasions. Through the open window the women heard the nightly dusk chorus of cicadas tuning-up. Before long it would rise to a deafening crescendo of sound. The topic of conversation moved to their children. Beth told Irene of Rick’s increasing reluctance to visit his father for the weekend. Irene frowned.
“There’s always a reason when a kid’s behaviour suddenly changes. What do you think is going on?”
Beth didn’t know. But she resolved to take the matter up with Rick on his return. She’d always enjoyed a very close, easy communication with her son, and it bothered her that he was shutting her out. After dinner they opened another bottle of wine, argued about politics, listened to music and generally enjoyed themselves until a knock at the door heralded Paul’s arrival. He always dutifully collected Irene at such times, aware the two friends often had the odd wine or three, and Beth was grateful for Paul’s attention to Irene’s needs. Winding her way upstairs, she flipped on the bedside television and fell asleep half way through the late movie. Tonight it was an Alfred Hitchcock thriller, ‘The Birds’.
In the morning Beth awoke, unsure for an instant what day it was. With welcome relief she remembered this was a long weekend. Her mind wandered over the previous day. She smiled as she remembered her evening. Irene was good company. Standing in her kitchen with her morning coffee, Beth glanced at the traps. The wasps that spent the night in the traps were not dead.
They wandered, sticky, cold and exhausted around their prison.
A couple had even crawled out of the opening, only to find their damaged wings would not fly them home. They set about to clean themselves in a weary, useless fashion. Beth realised, with regret, that this slow, creeping death was more cruel than the drowning confronting the wasps in the liquid lures. For the first time she turned her thoughts to the wasp queen. She wondered if the queen, deep in the nest, was aware that some of her workers had not returned? Did she worry about the welfare of her growing larval brood? Was she grateful for the self-sacrifice of her daughters? Beth wondered why the worker wasps struggled so hard to ensure the survival of the queen’s offspring, their sisters, when they themselves did not reproduce?
The sudden barking of her dogs alerted Beth to someone’s arrival. Glancing at the clock, she was surprised to see it was only eleven o’clock. She went to the front door, peering past the heavy, damask drapes to identify her visitor. It was Mark. He was a tall man, athletically built, and he carried himself with a natural grace. His hair was dark and wavy, and his face was full of charm and character. However Beth had long since grown immune to his appeal. She wondered why he was bringing the children home so early. They weren’t due back until tomorrow. Rick came in wearing a wooden expression. Beth noted his brief glance of pure relief. Then his face composed itself again. This time, however, even the patient Sarah seemed put-out.
“Is something wrong? You’re all back so early!”
Beth was annoyed that she had no chance to tidy the debris from the night before. Mark also looked irritated.
“The baby has some sort of a bug. He’s been vomiting and Helen’s been up all night with him. She’s pretty well had it, so she asked me to bring them home early.”
“I didn’t hear her say that,” piped Sarah. “I was helping Helen. She said I was a big help.”
Sarah adored her baby brother and prided herself on being a perfect big sister. Helen often complained light-heartedly that she never got to see Chance on access weekends. Sarah was too busy looking after her little ‘living doll’.
“No, Helen said you were just getting in the way,” snapped her father.
Sarah grabbed her overnight bag and flounced out of the room, as only a self-righteous twelve-year old girl can.
Beth too was surprised. Sarah was a highly capable, sensible child. She knew that Helen appreciated this, and Beth found it difficult to imagine that she would ever refer to Sarah as ‘being in the way’. Still, after a sleepless night, Beth supposed that even the good natured Helen could get a little grumpy.
“That’s no problem. I’d just like you to ring first next time to make sure I’m home,” said Beth.
“I thought it would be alright. Sarah says you never go anywhere anyway,” countered Mark unreasonably.
He looked around with distaste at the full ashtray and unwashed dishes, silently requesting an explanation. He received instead only an angry glance from Beth. She repeated her request for a phone call next time, before inquiring in a polite but uninterested voice about Helen and the baby. After calling out a goodbye to Sarah and giving his son a playful punch on the arm, Mark left.
Rick headed for the kitchen and Beth went after Sarah, concerned her feelings had been hurt. She found her daughter sulking on her bed, playing with their Chinchilla cat, Spooky.
“What’s up kid?” asked Beth.
Turning her tearstained face towards her mother, Sarah blurted out that it wasn’t Helen that wanted them to go home early.
“It was Daddy,” she pouted.
“Chance wasn’t even sick. Daddy was just in a bad mood. I know he always yells at Rick, but he never usually yells at me. He was even mean to Helen!”
Beth comforted her daughter and tried to distract her by suggesting that they go and bake something. Sarah brightened and trotted downstairs to get the big, old yellow Margaret Fulton cook book down from the shelf. She was relieved to see her daughter’s mood lift, but Beth remained annoyed for the rest of the day at Mark’s insensitivity. She’d always been grateful that, as a couple, they put their differences aside for their children’s sake. Mark was an attentive father and she generally had little to complain about. He was financially generous with family support and reliable with access arrangements. Beth’s personal interaction with him remained politely cold, and he in turn showed little interest in her life. This suited Beth perfectly well. It disturbed her that now, the arrangements seemed to be unilaterally changing. For the rest of the afternoon, Beth and the kids settled back into their comfortable family routine. Sarah baked muffins and Rick ate muffins. They then argued over the computer, ate dinner and watched television until bedtime.
Beth had forgotten the wasps.