Wasp Season

Prologue The fallen tree lay in a paddock behind Beth’s house. A fierce mountain storm had uprooted it the previous autumn. Beth had tried to cut it up for firewood, but the giant gum tree and its broad hardwood trunk proved too much of a challenge for her small chainsaw. Eventually she’d hired a local handyman. Although he had yet to complete the task, Beth didn’t mind too much. She knew that fallen timber was an asset in the natural scheme of things, providing a habitat for scores of insects. She did not foresee that this might include European wasps. One bright spring morning, high above Beth’s house, a wasp queen was searching for a place to nest. Her big yellow body and jet black bands distinguished her from most other insects. Long black antennae, set high on her head, tasted the warm breeze. Iridescent wings beat impossibly fast as she surveyed Beth’s garden. She descended from a clear azure sky in lazy spirals to alight upon the fallen tree. When she was at rest, her wings folded lengthwise like leaves of a fan. Behind her narrow waist, a smooth, plump abdomen carried distinctive black V shapes, accompanied by rows of dots on either side. The tip of her abdomen hid a thin, pointed drill – her sting. The painful sting of the European wasp did not contain barbs like that of a honeybee. Therefore, she could strike her victims repeatedly. This founding queen inspected her potential home with great care. She investigated every twig, fallen leaf and hollow. At last, with a satisfied tap of her antennae, the foundress made her decision. This was the place. Of course, she wasn’t the first one to discover the fallen tree. Centipedes and scorpions wriggled under it. Spiders crouched between its bark and trunk. A nest of tiny blind termites lived at one end, and a soft green carpet of lichens and moss grew over it, trapping raindrops and dew, hastening the tree’s inevitable decay. Many creatures used the rotting log as a nursery. Their eggs came in an array of fantastic shapes and shades. Tiny golden cocoons cradled the eggs of earthworms and leeches. Lizards buried pearl-like eggs in the rich humus. Wood-boring beetle eggs hatched into fat white grubs with bright orange heads, surrounded by all the food they could ever eat. Some log dwellers actively protected their young. A mother centipede lay coiled protectively around her pale brood. A huntsman spider crouched over her flat white egg sac. The spiderlings would remain with their devoted mother for a month or more. An earwig guarded fifty eggs, diligently cleaning them of fungus while waiting for them to hatch. A bush cockroach stayed by her hard egg case, which was almost ready to split and release her nymphs. She would rear them in an underground chamber, dutifully chewing wood into pulp to feed her babies. None of these creatures, however, could equal the European wasp queen when it came to maternal devotion. She stood at the apex of waspine evolution, ready to single-handedly create a complex and remarkably caring society. She would feed and protect her young during their miraculous metamorphosis from helpless blind grubs to highly developed adults. They in turn would stay home to care for their mother and siblings. With no natural predators in her adopted Australian home, the queen presented a ruthless and indomitable threat to the residents of the log and surrounding bushland. By the end of summer, her nest might number many thousands of individuals. This glorious future depended on the foundress choosing carefully and well during the coming months. A long and challenging road lay ahead of her.