The Wasp and The Bee (2024)

Hello reader. As I wrote this, Substack said, ‘Post too long for email’ which means if you are reading this in your email, a note may appear saying “View entire message" and you'll be able to view the entire post in your email app. Or something civilised like that, which will take you to the web version. Please do that, or get the Substack App. I believe that gives you the full salt and pepper and a dash of spice with the drink of your choice. And so, on we go…

I was about four years old when one sunny morning I stood outside my house in College Green, SE19, and a wasp flew into my mouth and stung me at the back of my throat. I watched it buzz away, and I recall the few seconds as I turned to run indoors before the sting slashed my existence into raw pieces. I was in agony, I could have died, but I just became delirious. I spent three days not quite in a coma, Mum taking my temperature to check in case of emergency hospitalisation. The fear and the memory of pain lived with me for years, and even now, though the details have diminished, I have never forgotten the incident.

Many years later, Mum and Dad assembled all children for a low-cost, farm-based holiday in Kent, the Garden of England, a ‘home county’ conveniently close to South Greater London where we lived. The 1970s were cash-strapped times of unemployment and low wages, the destination being decided as much by the price of petrol as the cost of the billet. The Boys, my elders by five and seven years, cycled down while the two youngers and I went in Dad’s ancient Ford car, overstuffed with bedding, clothing and books, and on top, a precarious roof rack. I took as many books as I could carry. I’d read anything to escape from boredom, mostly second hand books, or borowed other people, or from the library - anthropology, fiction, science fiction, Spike Milligan poetry, Goon Scripts, exploration books, Biggles, Jack London, Spike Milligan, Ursula K. Le Guin, Kurt Vonnegut, Arthur C. Clarke, Frank Herbert, Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, H.G. Wells, Mad magazine, Tao Te Ching, I Ching, Tarot, all in a morning.

With me I brought Kierkegaard, not to read but to feed and have fun. A beautiful tawny, light golden brown hamster he came from Percy Parslow’s famous hamster farm. I used to let him out to play, carefully monitored and never left alone. He enjoyed living in my pockets, running like a maniac on his wheel, and stuffing his hamster cheeks with sunflower seeds.

I made him various costumes and wearables including a crown encrusted with tiny jewels, marked BK, Baron Kierkegaard, which he occasionally wore on special days. He had an epic strength and no fear of heights - at home he would climb curtains to the ceiling, then, after considering his options, throw himself off. Concerned for his life we would pile up pillows at the bottom of the curtain and wait in high anticipation for his inevitable leap into the living room void. He lived to be the extraordinary late age of two and a half years.

Arrived and installed in our holiday home, a small working farm, The Boys went off daily on their very own cycling capers, and I was stuck with Mum, Dad, Sister and Youngest Brother. I was twelve, so being marooned with the young was my sole option, but no complaints because I’d never be able to match The Boys’ cycling prowess, and anyway, I’d just get teased, possibly pushed into nettles or a ditch.

Compared to Croydon the farm was dangerous hamster territory - there were cats around - but it was exciting, and while I stood guard, Kierkegaard took to burrowing into the piles of sawdust which were to be found all around the farm, wherever wood had been sawn.

Regardless of the family’s limited means, we had fun living in this ancient world with animals and apples, tractors and trucks. We mostly observed the rules and were polite to the hard working country folk. They seemed not to worry when we took to running excitedly up and down the lane attracting the fascination of a group of young heifers on the other side of the thick hedge, their hooves pounding the grassy earth as they raced us, and when we stopped, sniffing us loudly through leaves and branches, noses blasting air in and out.

This year, we were holidaying at the height of an unpredictable English summer, which was hot and clammy. Budget limitations and the occasional grey wet day did not seem to matter - we had enough, we were in fresh air and close to the sea.

We spent days at one of several nearby beaches, eating cheese and tomato sandwiches and swimming in the chilly, shallow sea. Other times we found woods to explore, ancient sites to roam around, the odd famous landmark such as Hever Castle, where Mum would occasionally expound her impressive historical knowledge. The farm became a stage for games, particularly a tall, three-sided barn where bales of hay were stacked up high. It took us no time to make unobtrusive tunnels and hide there, playing fantasy WW2 scenarios of escaped prisoners of war avoiding capture.

At night, we slept in tents, two up (The Boys) and three up (Me and the Youngers) in an orchard adjacent to the farm, which wasn’t too bad, except for the lack of an easy to reach toilet. Mum and Dad were nearby in their adult quarters, a caravan, sleeping next to a kitchen with elementary cooking facilities and a table to eat upon. Once we got used to it, we could bear it. Every so often, one of the youngers would vacate the kid’s tent in the middle of the night and find solace with the parents, where they were never refused; it has to be said, this was one thing parents always got right - nobody was rejected, nightmares and all.

For me, while broken sleep could be suffered, it was the constant sounds of insects and animal nightlife which unnerved me and caused nightly insomnia, until exhaustion finally knocked me out just before dawn. Mosquitoes were everywhere; hungry whining bastards impossible to avoid, they would queue up to drain my blood, leaving me scratching for days, regardless of my attempts to sleep without exposing an inch of my soft, easily-punctured kinder fleisch.

Yet even mosquitoes, the biggest killer of humans were no match for my personal nemesis, wasps. In the midsummer Kent heat they were huge, fast, loud, supercharged, feasting on rotting apples, having not yet become their final incarnation towards summer’s end when, deprived of nutrition, they became sluggish, irritable, disoriented, as they approached death… but for a month or two, they were fast, loud, aggressive, seemingly intelligent, and in the thousand. I was possessed by the thought that a wasp might invade the tent while I was sleeping and sting my exposed face, eyes, throat.. would I survive the next assault? Would my throat swell up and suffocate me? The nagging fear of being predated kept me from sleep, drew me into dreams of pain where I was devoured by outsized creatures of evil who fed me to their larvae.

In the tent I lay hiding, boiling like a fish in a bag, too scared to show an inch of flesh in a dark I could not pierce. In the gloom, my mind wandered, and I became obsessed.

I had to do something, at least to the ones near to my tent. I decided to destroy them, and fell asleep without even noticing.

The following day was Saturday, and not a very do-a-lot day. It was baking, hotter than any day we’d had so far. The parents planned to do adult things, Dad going shopping for food, while Mum spent a couple of hours at the local hairdressers. This was her holiday ritual wherever we went, to get her hair done, to be affordably groomed so as to feel relaxed and attractive. She also enjoyed spending time chatting with the local women, because you never knew what the gossip would be. The two youngers could have stayed at the farm under my careful, kind protection, a task I took seriously. I wasn’t too bossy, I ran democratic games where everyone had input, they mostly did as they wished; but I did insist we play games enacting dramatic fantasies, mostly about being on the run and avoiding the enemy. They decided to go with the parents, and I asked if I could borrow a bike from the farm to go cycling locally. Permission granted, I waved the family off, and took the entirety of my holiday savings to the nearest shop which was three or four miles away.

By the time I got to the shop, my legs ached, my eyes itched, and the massive saddle had chafed my inner thighs which which were running out of skin. I looked like someone had clumsily painted me for camouflage purposes. I was panting as I got off the bike, but I had made it to base one. It had taken me 40 minutes, I had calculated 30 minutes. Not too bad.

I did my best to wipe my face on a hanky, and fished my sock full of coins out of my bag. This fiscal collection included traditional pocket money which came from parents, but never predictably. Most of it derived from various improvised sources, which in my case meant doing odd jobs for neighbours, like shopping, or mowing a lawn, holding something while somebody nailed it to something else, or walking a dog, or baby sitting.

To enhance the proceeds I told some of my more elderly clients that their payment for my labour was part of Bob-a-Job, the historic annual fundraiser on behalf of the Scout Association. Well, I was a Scout, albeit a newly minted one, and I as far as I was concerned I was just making sure that First Baron Baden-Powell’s Association didn’t take the money I made outside of Bob-a-Job Week, which I thought entirely reasonable, having been scrupulous in handing over the official proceeds in full.

Another income source was doing the paper round Christmas collection. I wasn’t the regular paper boy working early mornings seven days a week on newspaper deliveries, I was the free paper boy, posting threadbare news with dozens of cheap local ads and very slender excuses for local journalism adorning the front and back pages once a week. As the precious season of Noël loomed and the evenings became increasingly dark, I showed up early, beating the carol singers and everyone else to it. I was the first door knocker and bell ringer of the season, chiming “Paper boy!” as I smiled before the doors opened, saying a cheery “Thank you!” as I collected whatever traditional contributions in coin form they were prepared to part with.

I was impressed and delighted by the takings, though at first I was surprised by people’s generosity. The penny dropped a tad later when I realised they were all assuming that I was their regular paper boy, mostly because they never saw him close up, until Christmas. For a short while I felt a bit guilty, hoping I hadn’t done legit paper boy out of his Christmas tips; but nobody had seemed to notice the difference, so I stashed the proceeds until summer. Without this godsend I would have struggled to get five quid together, but just before the holiday, with the addition of paid chores I had amassed just over twenty British quid, a major haul in those days.

Outside the shop, it looked quite small. Presuming that thieves would be scarce in the middle of Kent countryside, I leant the bike on a rail outside, and into the shop I limped, squinting into the gloom. Compared to midday sun, it was dark as a cave, and I waited for my eyes to adjust. The shop smelt unusual, a mixture of pleasant and industrial, apples and two-stroke oil.

Once inside it was astonishing how full it was, as full as I’d ever seen a shop anywhere, containing every imaginable kind of goods, all clearly labeled - rakes, saws, drills, hand tools, leather gloves, rubber gloves, water bottles, baby bottles, Kilner jars, pumps, tyres, colanders, scouring pads, plungers, metal bowls, plastic bowls, scissors, knives, flower bulbs, electric bulbs, batteries of all kinds, nails of all type, screws of all sizes, washing up liquid, washing powder, powders to boost the growth of vegetables, powders to kill the bugs before they ate the vegetables.

I scoured the shelves, looking for anti-insect anything, preferably sprayable.

“Can I help you?” came a gentle voice from behind the counter. I turned and saw a large girl not so many years older than I was.

I replied, “I’m looking for insect repellent and supressant.”

She smiled and said, “The prices are all marked. Have a good look through, any questions please ask, I’ll be the other side of the counter.”

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Scanning shelf after shelf, calculating price, weight, and estimating their possible lethal capacity, I meant business. I could get these chemical weapons back to the farm and erase the evil ones from my holiday. I would tell nobody, I told myself, I would just do it. But after 30 minutes of umm-ing and ah-ing and weighing up my funds, thinking of the thousands of wasps I intended to annihilate, my resources seemed paltry, even useless. I finally decided on several lethal sprays, each brazenly promising a pest-free life, plus half a litre of poisonous liquid marked DANGER POISON in red, white and black with a skull and crossbones motif. I also bagged a reduced price mini-tarpaulin, four heavy duty clamps, a small, sharp knife, and four metres of nylon rope, all part of my plan to capture wasps prior to eliminating them. Finally, to get past the shop assistant, I included a pair of safety gloves marked “medium”.

Ignoring the careful sales patter regarding my safety and the need for a face mask, I promised the shop girl with all sincerity I had that I intended to make a face covering out of two layers of fine cotton which I had conveniently brought with me just in case it became necessary to defend myself, stressing high levels of allergic reaction which may cause me to suffer agonies or expire. She seemed genuinely concerned for my future well-being, and wished me the best of luck. As I left, I wondered if she had a boyfriend.

Carrying an overfilled rucksack, wishing I'd been able to afford the professional chemical weapons on sale, exiting the relatively cool shade of the shop the lurking clammy heat hit me like a hot, wet slap in the face. Climbing back onto the bike, my legs aching, I sensed thunder building in some as yet invisible space.

The first few hundred yards hurt and hurt again, my small legs being no match for this bike. It took me 90 minutes to get back to the farm, my eyes stinging with sweat pouring down my face, and my skull beginning to thud with a headache, to this day often the case when a low pressure thunderstorm threatens.

Squinting into the sun, I pushed the bike the last quarter mile. As I persevered I became more and more exhausted, doubting everything - the waste of money - I had just three pounds left - the concern that parents would arrive back and stop me carrying out my adjustment to the insect ecology - or worse, maybe the farmer would object and throw everyone off the farm - or even worse, I would be set upon by vengeful wasps. On the last leg, running out of energy, parched, I gritted my teeth and determined to carry out my plan.

Finally, I was back, and thankfully the farm was quiet as a church on Wednesdays.. of course, it was market day. Grateful for that stroke of luck, I returned the bike to the low fence where it was parked, and searched for water. I prayed that the caravan would be open, and it was. It was baking inside. I drank warm bottled water like the life-rescuing elixir it was, wishing I had an aspirin for my headache. I saw my face in a small mirror, and washed my face, wiping streaks of dust into the tiny sink. Looking at my red face, I felt blank, too tired to think heroically about my preventive pest defense strategy. But I had to give it a try, or the last vestiges of my pride would be gone.

I began to reckon with time. The family had yet to return, so I should act now. I now realised the dangerous poison needed a footpump which I did not have - five quid down the drain! I couldn’t believe I had worked for months to build up my cash reserves only to lose half of it in one go… unless I could find one on the farm… I remembered that I had to make a mask, and that I had lied about having the mask-making material. Could I risk it? I glanced again at the POISON alert and decided it was unwise to dispense with the home-made mask. How would I overcome this shortage? Pyjamas! Taking the sharp knife, I found some sellotape in the caravan, and went to find my pyjamas which were in the tent, being used as an extra pillow.

The noise of insects was loud enough to hear from the other side of the field as I made my way carefully towards and around the perimeter of the old orchard, skirting umpteen fallen apples which swarmed and buzzed with wasps. As I approached the tent on the other side, I was glad to see our tentflap was closed as I had left it, keeping our bedroom safe.

Inside, light filtering through canvas, I hacked at the cotton pyjama trousers with tired hands and a throbbing headache. I wished I had scissors, and was about to go back to the caravan to look for some when a wasp rose up idly between me and the tentflap - my god! It must have been there OVERNIGHT and now it was between me and the exit. My heart began to thud. All the sprays were back in the caravan, and I had to cross the orchard to get them. Keeping my eyes on it as I slowly approached the exit I was a consumed by fear. I felt so vulnerable, my reservoir of courage evaporating in seconds. I needed the gloves! Suddenly my foot hit a soft fold in a sleeping bag, and I fell forward, striking my head on the central tent pole.

For a horrible moment I thought it might be Kierkegaard under my feet, until I remembered he was safe in the caravan. But I had left the caravan door ajar! sh*t! There could be wasps in there, one sting could be the end of him! Thinking of my wonderful hamster, I took deep breath. I had to control myself, so I took some deep breaths like I'd seen in WW2 prisoners of war films. I must not allow the stress to get the better of me, I thought, but I couldn’t abandon my beloved rodent friend, and I must go immediately to his aid. Looking around, had tent-wasp gone? It seemed to have left, so I grabbed the half-finished pyjama-mask and hurled myself into the sweltering heat. As I half ran, half stumbled across the unkempt orchard, the ground pockmarked by divits and strewn with twigs and branches, I could smell the sweet stench of rotting apples abandoned on the soil, food for everything unhuman.

The afternoon clouds were pretty but smirking, massing under a veiled threat of deluge. Clutching my half-constructed pyjama mask, I ran up the short steel stairs into the caravan, and went straight to Kierkegaard’s mobile home. It was sweltering in there. I opened the hatch and reached in, fumbling gently in the bedding to detect him… where was he... ah! He was fast asleep, surrounded by sunflower seed husks. Of course he was perfectly fine in the heat - after all, he was a direct descendent of noble hamsters found in an arid Syrian desert! Thanking His Hamster Majesty Percy Parslow, I made sure the cage door was shut fast.

Time was beginning to escape me as I took the sprays, the poison, tarpaulin and gloves out of the rucksack, and laid them out on the caravan floor. I decided the poison was too heavy and in need of serious preparation - while I would destroy as many wasps as I could, I didn’t want to end up in a Kent hospital. I would have to stash it somewhere. Where would it not be found? A flash of genius - under the dark recesses of the caravan, hidden by the steps. Nobody would look there. The sprays would be my weapons.

I wrapped what remained of my pyjamas over my nose and mouth, and put on my cap. Then to be sure my improvised mask would stay put I wrapped it three times around my head with Sellotape, leaving my mouth unobstructed. I tested it - I could breathe through the ancient cotton. The gloves were long, thick, adult sized ‘medium’ proving far too big for me, extending as as far as my elbows, but they felt reliable. There were two zones still unprotected - two inches between the gloves and my t-shirt, and my legs from the knees down. It was a risk.

I looked in the blurry caravan mirror, and an insane pirate in some shoddy amateur play looked back at me as I put on my plastic sunglasses, pride of my summer look, so dark I could only see vague shapes. Squinting, I knew that outside in the glare they would come into their own. I slung the rucksack over my left shoulder, looked back at Kierkegaard, picked up the poison, and before I left glanced at the plastic clock.

It was half past two. I reckoned I had no more than an hour to rid the farm of wasps. I didn’t feel very brave as I plodded towards the orchard - I could hear the buzzing increasing as I walked to my destiny - it was very, very loud, getting louder.

The orchard’s sweet dank smell was repulsive. The trees were old, the apples all sizes, but none seemed to be related to the apples I enjoyed. For the first time it occurred to me that I had never been near so many wasps, yet here I was heading straight for them. Some apples still hung on the trees but many more lay on the ground, rotting. As I grew near, the surfaces seemed to shimmer and move, and as I got closer still I realised that I could see dozens of wasps on the windfalls. I circled round towards the tents, wishing for a drink for my parched throat, realising I hadn’t brought any water with me.

In an exhausted hurry, I stashed the cans in a skip, under some non-descript rusty farm equipment. I put the tarpaulin back in the rucksack. I buried my pyjama mask in a hole under a hedge. I left the poison where it was, and felt guilty about it on and off for years. They must have found it! Maybe. I felt depleted, pointless, wasted. Thousands, millions of wasps would never be enough. I had lost all sense of proportion, and I knew it. Why did I imagine that was a good idea in the first place? Why now? Because I could. What did it achieve? f*ck all. Waste of time, waste of life. Nothing left for my kite. Stupid f*ckwit. I cursed myself in every way I could, showing myself as little mercy as I had shown the wasps.

Under a cold shower I rinsed the day off, just in time for the family to arrive with food. I was pleased to see them, but I was withdrawn, said little, just that I had cycled a long way and was tired. I ate something filling, was offered an apple for afters, which I turned down.

I didn’t enjoy the rest of the holiday so much. Flat beaches with long shallows full of young kids, adults swimming hundreds of yards from the shore, sand sandwiches, red skins, ice cream attracting bugs. I recall asking if I could have a top up to buy a kite and was surprised when parents said yes. Perhaps they noticed my melancholy. Indeed, I wanted to be up there with the kite, as far away as possible. I would walk a mile down the endless, flat beach and back on my own, Mum and Dad with the Youngers, the Boys who knows where, and me with my kite in the wind, up on high above it all. Finally, I found some peace.

At home, the ‘pointless wasp massacre’ lingered, rattling around my head on and off for weeks. Having power over the powerless wasn’t a buzz, ha ha! But no smile came, observed or not. My joke to myself wasn’t funny at all. Fear. Pain. Memory. Seeking revenge. As I unpacked my clothes, a flat, dead wasp fell out. So that was where it went. Stupid. Eventually, new things to worry about removed the disquiet. I thought I was done with it all, and, having a greater understanding of trauma and psychology generally, thinking I was just being silly back then; but I was actually in denial, and there was one more event to prove it.

A couple of years later, the family were living in a new house close to the woods on Beulah Hill, SE19, near where my mother grew up. One early summer morning I ‘borrowed’ a gun, a .22 air pistol which shouldn’t have been anyone’s in our house. So knowing I couldn’t possibly be blamed for its unauthorised usage by the nameless one who had carelessly hidden it, I took it into the woods and went looking for things to shoot.

I hadn’t called a friend to join in because I didn’t want to generate expectations of future gun fun; I just wanted the chance to see how good a shot I was. The woods were full of wildlife, so I was excited at the prospect of being quietly rebellious, so long as I didn’t get caught. It turned out I was a crap shot, I couldn’t hit a sparrow, a pigeon, or even someone’s window from a distance. The gun was pretty good, but I was useless. As the day opened, people started appearing in the woods, and I knew I had to stop now.

Disconsolate, I wandered out of the woods with just a couple of pellets left, one loaded. In the new bright sun, I looked around and thought what a thrill that excitement wasn’t. I glanced down and watched a fat bumble bee drinking nectar from a dandelion, and from a yard away, shot at it. Half of it disappeared, and the rest of it tried to fly, and could only go round and round.

I felt sick, overwhelmed by instant, profound regret. Why on earth did I do that? Bees never harmed me, they make honey. We need them for our crops. Without bees, humans are endangered. I knew this already, back in the 1970s. Nothing but my own weakness and petty resentment at my lack of shooting skill triggered that moment.

Afterwards, I was introverted and depressed. Experiencing genuine contrition I saw the bee in my mind over and over again; and the memory of remorse never left me, because it was far worse than the wasp sting all that time ago, and the time I foolishly planned to exterminate all the wasps in Kent.

But what I learned stayed with me. Did you know why wasps are so aggressive at the end of the year? They are starved to death by their Queen. Having been fed by her all year, they are footsoldiers who die hungry. No wonder they are desperate. And did you know how important wasps are to our ecosystems? Wasps are top predators of other, crop-destructive insects, and “deserve to be just as highly valued as other insects, like bees, due to their roles as predators, pollinators, and more” according to University of East Anglia.

• All the text and most of the images here are © Dean FR Whitbread 2024 - Guess which images aren’t mine, and win a thing. Answers in the comments.