The solid, dappled grey mare thundered towards the striped bars of the jump. Her body quivered and her ears snapped forward as Beth, seemingly imperceptibly, used her heels to indicate the precise moment to rise. Easily, gracefully she cleared the obstacle, with a stylish kick of her heels and flick of her tail. Beth circled the mare at a collected canter, finally coming to a halt at an excited group of people standing in the centre of the riding arena. A tall, dark-haired girl kissed the mare on the nose, her eyes shining with excitement and pride.
“Why doesn’t she jump like that for me?” the girl complained.
Beth smiled in an encouraging way as she gave the young rider a leg-up onto her mount.
“It’s all in the hands and seat. We just have to work at developing an understanding. You have a beautiful mare here with loads of potential. In time you’ll both learn to work as a team. Right now, you need more practice. So, let’s go!”
For the next hour Beth devoted herself to her enthusiastic pupil. At the conclusion of the lesson she felt elated. She loved to watch the girl and her mare progress towards the magical union that exists between the successful team of horse and rider. With some parting advice, Beth headed for her car.
Spring was Beth’s favourite time of the year. As she drove down the winding mountain road, the beauty of her surroundings struck her. The clarity of the blue sky was occasionally visible through the cool canopy of Gum leaf crowns. As the road left the forest, it emerged into a patchwork quilt of red ploughed paddocks and green pastures. Contented cows grazed lazily in the lush, daisy-studded fields. A Wedge Tailed Eagle soared in solitary circles over the ridge to her left. Sacred Ibis foraged in flocks along the river valley to her right. Scattered golden Wattle blossoms gave the whole world a sun-kissed effect. Beth whistled a tune as she neared the entrance to her tree-lined driveway.
There was only one shadow on her horizon. It was Friday afternoon and Mark was due to pick up the children after tea. Beth wasn’t looking forward to dealing with Rick, who would be back from school by the time she arrived home. The access weekends were now a decidedly sore point, and Beth felt guilty pressing him to go. Yet although hating to see him sulky and depressed, she felt that he should go. She remembered her resolve to talk to her son, and get to the bottom of his changed feelings. She had neglected to do so.
Rick and Sarah were arguing in the kitchen. Beth was relieved to discover that Rick was in a reasonably good mood. His Dad had apparently promised to take him bowling, and she hoped that some fun time spent together might ease the tension between father and son. For some reason Sarah was not invited, and was making her protests loud and clear.
“What about me?” she wailed.
“I thought you liked spending time with Helen and Chance?” ventured Beth.
“Lately all Helen does is bitch about Dad”.
“What does she say?” asked Beth, her curiosity getting the better of her.
“She says he’s always on at her about money. You know, shopping and maxing-out her credit cards. Helen says Dad’s always asking her where she’s been and what she’s been doing. She’s becoming a real whinger!”
Beth was surprised. Mark was usually generous, even a little careless with his money. When they were together, it was Beth who pulled in the purse strings if need be. It bothered her that Helen was involving her daughter in their personal affairs. Mark arrived early and walked in the front door straight to the kitchen, without knocking. Beth again felt a surge of irritation. Still, he seemed in a conciliatory mood and she was hopeful that this weekend might put Rick and his father back on track. She made him a coffee and they chatted idly in the kitchen while the kids packed their bags.
Glancing out of the window, Mark saw the traps.
“What’s all this?” he asked.
“I’ve got a European wasp problem.”
“Why don’t you just get an exterminator?”
“Well, it’s not all that simple. I can’t find the nest.”
“Do you want me to find it?” asked Mark.
“Why do you think you could find it if I couldn’t?” snapped Beth.
Mark still thought he could solve Beth’s problems for her. It was so patronising. The old feelings of resentment took hold and she was reminded of why she asked him to leave three years ago.
“Keep your shirt on,” he laughed.
“Or then again, maybe you shouldn’t.”
Without warning, Mark moved close and attempted a clumsy kiss, his hand snaking down to fondle the crotch of her jeans. Beth pushed him away and stepped sideways. Too surprised for words, she left the kitchen to go and help the children.
She bundled them all out of the door as quickly as she could and watched the car drive off. Mark was certainly full of surprises lately. What on earth was going on with him? Over the past few years he never gave her as much as a second glance. At times she even felt hurt by the way he had so completely cut-off from her. But at least it kept things simple. She didn’t need this sort of a complication in her life. Beth hoped it was an isolated incident; an aberration brought on by some temporary difficulty at home.
To help settle her thoughts, she decided to go for a walk. Once outside, the beauty of the approaching evening distracted her from her former concerns. The rollicking, territorial call of the local Kookaburras made her slightly embarrassed. They always seemed to know something about her that was worthy of ridicule. Dragonflies darted here and there, catching and reflecting the late rays of the afternoon sun on their iridescent wings. An Eastern Spinebill, handsome in his chestnut and white plumage, hovered hummingbird-like to feed from a flower. The sky remained a brilliant blue. Beth headed across the lawn to the path that led down to the stables. Beyond the stable, two horses and a small pony grazed in a paddock, flanked by a gully of Gum trees. They raised their heads at Beth’s approach and one by one, ambled over to the fence. Caesar, her chestnut Warmblood gelding, led the way. Shannon, a fine black Anglo Arabian mare, closely followed him. Last came Skittles, a chubby palomino pony who, Beth noted, could do with losing some weight. As she rubbed their faces affectionately, she noticed a flash of black and yellow beneath the stable eaves. Curiously she investigated. A series of neat clay cylinders hung in a cavity between the flashing and the stable wall. Bracing herself with her legs, a black and yellow wasp was packing a mouthful of mud onto the wall of a partially finished cell. Briefly, Beth mistook the insect for a European wasp and thought she might have solved the mystery of the nest location. But on second glance she realised that this was an entirely different insect. She had discovered a nest of the native Mud Dauber, sometimes known as the Potter Wasp. Despite its superficial colour similarity, Beth noted that this wasp possessed an impossibly thin waist. She felt a little envious. It was hard to believe such a fragile reed could support the wasp’s plump abdomen.
Her wings lay flat over her body in a criss-cross formation, making them look longer than they actually were. With her curled antennae, narrow waist and delicate legs, the wasp looked like some sort of alien, costumed, ballet dancer. As she applied the mud pellet onto the nest, she made a distinctive, contented, buzzing sound. Beth was fascinated. The wasp flew off to collect more mud, returning again and again, until the little pot was nearly finished. Intrigued by the wasps industry, Beth failed to notice the time.
It was almost too dark to see when the wasp returned with something besides mud in her jaws. Gripped firmly between her powerful mandibles was a large, black House spider. The motionless spider was stuffed unceremoniously into the top of the cylinder. Beth was both spellbound and horrified. Conceding that it was too dark to continue her observations, she headed for the house. She had heard that some wasps paralyse living prey to provide food for their young and had always been repelled by the appalling cruelty of such behaviour. It was like something out of a Gothic horror tale; the victim, buried alive, unable to move or scream, slowly eaten alive by the wasp’s voracious, slug-like infant. Could she rescue the spider? Reason told her that she could not. It would remain helplessly paralysed by venom from the wasps sting, whether inside or outside of the deadly nursery.
Beth’s distaste was tempered by her grudging respect for the mother wasp. After all thought Beth, she was trying to protect and provide for her babies, wasn’t she? She laboured alone to construct and provision those stout mud walls to ensure the survival of her offspring. Paralysed spiders were an ingenious solution to a lack of refrigeration. The food source remained fresh. Immobilised prey could neither escape nor damage their tomb. Beth realised that to some degree she identified with the mother wasp. Would she do as much for her own children? Squirming out of the silly moral dilemma she had somehow placed herself in, she headed indoors for a long, hot, thoughtless bath.
Beth awoke to the rays of the morning sun streaming in her window. She felt rested and relaxed, and jumped out of bed in a positive mood. Such early sunshine heralded another perfect spring day. Dressing quickly, she headed downstairs for breakfast. As she made toast, she noticed that her traps, piled high with dead wasps, needed emptying again. Despite the apparent success of these traps, the wasps continued to be a nuisance. Beth loved to eat out on the verandah, but the constant presence of the European wasps restricted this simple pleasure. Unwilling to fend off the unwelcome visitors, she settled for breakfast in the sunroom. Bay windows overlooked the garden where a group of Superb Blue Wrens were feeding. The dull brown of the Jenny Wren’s plumage was in stark contrast to the dazzling blue of the male’s. They fluttered to and fro, pecking at the mulched beds to disturb insects. Beth was relieved to see Spooky asleep inside by a sunny window. The wrens presented an easy target for such an accomplished killer.
After breakfast, Beth decided to go for a ride in the State forest that adjoined her land. She put the dogs away in their run, and headed down to the stable. The discovery of the Mud Dauber wasp nest was fresh in her thoughts. On reaching the stable, the first thing she did was to see how the wasp’s work was progressing. She arrived just in time to see another unfortunate spider being shoved unceremoniously into the top of a cylinder. Apparently finished, the female proceeded to seal her nest with a mud plug. When the job was complete, the mother Mud Dauber left, never to return. She’d done all she could for her young.
Beth looked at the little row of clay pots, imagining their dark interiors. Within each cell lay a single egg, together with its allotted prey. They needed to be separated from each other, as the voracious larvae would eat one another just as happily as they would their hapless, helpless spider victims. The paralysed spiders could remain alive in their prison for up to thirty days, but the larvae usually consumed their living flesh within a week. Beth felt a little shudder go up her spine. Sigourney Weaver and the Alien movies have got nothing on this little drama, she thought. Curiously she inspected the remaining stable eaves, looking for the telltale signs of other Mud Dauber activity. These nests did not always take the same form. Sometimes the nest resembled a wrinkled, brain-like mass or a little mud jug with a curious spout. What she did find surprised her even more than had her discovery the previous afternoon.
On the opposite side of the stable, underneath the eaves, hung another partially completed nest. It was grey and seemed to be made of a paper-like material. Several dozen honeycomb shaped cells were visible from beneath the nest, which hung suspended from a single stem. Beth wondered again if she’d found the European wasp nest, but the arrival of the tenant soon dashed that hope. The wasp that landed on the structure bore no resemblance to its larger European counterpart. It was a medium-sized wasp, slim and hairless, with a narrow waist. Its body was dark brown with yellowish-orange bands across its abdomen. Its antennae were short and its narrow wings stuck out at an angle as it busied itself at the nest site. Beth’s amateur naturalist knowledge helped her to correctly identify the nest as that of a native Paper Wasp.
Unlike its solitary cousin, the Mud Dauber, this wasp was truly social. It lived in small colonies containing one queen and a population of workers. Beth knew that this nest could present a problem, as these wasps might become aggravated by human presence close by, and they possessed a fearsome sting. But after a few moments consideration she decided that it was too far away from the house to present a real danger. She would of course warn the kids to avoid going too close. Otherwise she would leave it alone and observe nature at work, pleased that native wasps were at least holding their own against the foreign invaders. The more she thought about it, the more her protective feelings grew. This was no solitary, sinister horror tale, like that of the Potter Wasps. Within a month, if successful, the mated queen would rear a first generation of all female brood by herself. These would become the workers, taking over the tasks of nest extension and collecting insect food for the larvae. The larvae would pupate and some would emerge in early autumn as adult males and fertile females. Beth felt excited by her find. One of the drawbacks of single life was that at times like this there was no one with whom to share the news. She realised that she was missing her children. Not particularly sharing her interest in insects, they would have listened politely and then looked at each other giggling. However it would have been nice to have someone to tell, even if they did consider her fascination somewhat eccentric.
This fresh discovery again distracted her for a substantial period of time. Although it was now much later than she would have liked, she decided to still go riding. Catching Caesar, she quickly bridled and saddled him. They trotted up the drive, her horse snatching at the bit, eager to have his head. Once on the grassy path leading to the forest ride Beth let him canter, knowing he wouldn’t settle until he expended some of his pent-up energy. He was young and fit and had not been taken out all week. Beth loved the feel of wind in her hair and the sensation of controlled power beneath her. Thoughts of the wasps dispersed as she abandoned herself to the experience.