I admit I was a little apprehensive when I first noticed the nest. After all, I had the safety of a wife and two young girls (six and eight years old at the time), not to mention my own well-being to think of. Had the wasps not chosen that particular location in the carport — directly above our entry door, and only a two-foot distance from my head — I might not have been concerned.

There were only three or so wasps on the nest the first day I noticed it. I sensed the wasps glaring menacingly as I approached the door, but they didn’t attack. I decided to let them be, thinking it might be a good learning opportunity for the girls.

I was able to identify the species as red paper wasps (Polistes carolina) and called the girls out to see. My lesson held their attention for about three minutes. My admonishment to not slam the screen door, lest they alarm the wasps, lasted a bit longer. They obeyed this directive for maybe a week, but then the novelty of the wasps faded, and my warnings were, for the most part, quickly forgotten.

Over the course of that Spring, I began to pay more attention to the comings and goings of wasps. Several times, I found them out at the clothesline, crawling on the clothespins. What the…? I learned that they were chewing on the weathered wood in order to create the “paper” to build their nest. Turns out that wasps chew on wood and stems, mixing the fibers with their saliva to create a waterproof paper suitable for nest-building. If you get a chance to study an old nest, you’ll notice the variations in color as the nest was built, each color layer deriving from the different woods used to make their nests.

My wife and I had planted some broccoli plants in a bed near the driveway that year. The struggle with cabbage worms was a constant. Forgoing insecticides, I went out each morning before work and picked off the worms. One morning, I watched as the wasps landed on the plants to drink the morning dew. One wasp, I noticed, crawled underneath a broccoli leaf and disappeared. After a short time, it reappeared at the edge of the leaf, carrying one of the cabbage worms, which it then ferried off toward the nest. Turns out, wasps are voracious hunters of caterpillars, aphids, beetle and housefly larvae, which they feed to their own “babies” in the nest. I was amazed!

One thing you’ll notice, if you spend much time watching wasps, is their frequent visits to flowers. It’s for the nectar, not pollen. In fact, some plants have actually evolved “extrafloral nectaries” — little nectar pockets at the stem joints — that serve to encourage visits from wasps, ants and ladybugs, which, in turn, repay their generous host by ridding it of pests. As a bonus, the vibration of the wasp on the flowers assists self-pollinating plants, such as beans, and can increase crop yields. Yet one more reason to welcome the wasps to your garden!

Between the clothespin chewing and the caterpillar catching, the wasp nest was becoming larger and larger. The population increased to ten… twenty…. thirty!  With the girls running wild, in and out of the house — repeatedly slamming the screen door in the process — there were times I gave serious thought to removing the nest. I didn’t take lightly the specter of thirty angry wasps. But they’d not once shown the least sign of aggression or even taking notice of our comings and goings. I let them be. Some studies have shown that wasps have the ability to recognize, not only each other’s faces, but human faces. Perhaps they learn over time, as we do, friend from foe. Paper wasps are not aggressive unless you threaten or attack their nest.

It has been quite a while since my “year of the wasps.” Those days and months, with their uncounted hundreds of screen door slams, passed without a single incident.

These days, when visiting my brother (who calls me “the wasp whisperer”) out on his screen porch, a wasp will frequently find its way inside and endlessly bob at the screen, trying to find its way out. In most cases, I am able to coax the wasp onto my fingers and safely transport it to freedom outside– no fly swatters or poisons needed. Of course, it helps to have the ability to recognize a very agitated wasp. Stay away from those! Still, I have never been stung in my rescue efforts. Whew! 

Wasps who are in flight about the yard and garden are away from their nest for a reason — and it’s not to sting or attack us. They’re busy seeking nectar, making paper, or hunting food for their young, Wasps are actually very gentle and essential creatures in our world and, like us all, just trying to survive.

Contributor Burt Glover became an accidental naturalist during his earliest childhood days exploring the dirt roads, backyards, polo field and barns of the Magnolia-Knox-Mead neighborhood of 1950s Aiken. Birds are his first love, and he can identify an impressive range by song alone. He asserts that he is an observer, not an expert, on the topics of his writings, which range from birds, box turtles, frogs and foraging, to wasps, weeds, weather and beyond