Picture if you will the hive of the noble honeybee: Row upon tidy row of waxen hexagonal cells staffed by diligent workers making their rounds, cheerfully performing a host of duties. Some are tending to the brood, feeding the larva on nectar and delicious royal jelly . Some surround the queen, protecting and feeding her while she continually lays eggs at a rate of up to six a minute. Others workers generate heat to keep the hive at a cozy temperature year-round. Workers returning from their pollen-gathering excursions dance merry little jigs to indicate the position of nectar-bearing flowers to their hive sisters. The beehive is a model of unity and industry, each citizen working hard and understanding their place in the grand scheme. Every member works unselfishly to serve the greater good, and the fruits of their labors are sweet indeed.
Now contrast this idyllic scene to the den of the decadent wasp: A veritable shantytown of slapdash construction, cobbled together with a mixture of scavenged, redigested woodpulp and wasp saliva into a nauseous brown lump that hangs, off-kilter, from its treebranch or porch-eave like some swollen, leprous malignancy. Within, row upon asymmetrical row of the familiar hexagonal cells, their flimsy paper construction a twisted mockery of the sturdy beeswax structures of their honey-making cousins.
But these cells contain no such storehouses of sweetness; indeed, the scene here presented is by comparison one of unspeakable horror. Here, the marauding wasps return with their hapless, paralyzed prey: the spider, the caterpillar, and yes, even our friend the trustworthy honeybee. These prisoners are encased in cells after the wasps lay eggs inside their very bodies, so that their carcasses can serve as a food source for the larva when they emerge from within their egg casings. And emerge they do, wave upon wave of the malevolent airborne menaces, sallying forth from the nest in a relentless quest to secure their perimeter and amass more food.
Like honeybees, wasps have a taste for the sweet nectar of the blossoming flower, but produce no nourishing honey as by-product of their feasting. The sugars they crave serve as nothing more than fuel for their one true goal: expansion of the nest and preparation of the next wave of soldiers in their wasp army. Unlike honeybees, they also evidence a profound fondness for raw meat, making them the bane of many a backyard barbecue, where they are prone to land on the uncooked hamburger patties of unsuspecting picnickers, heedless to any pre-existing claims to these most American of foodstuffs.
Yes, that’s right, dear reader. While well-intentioned Americans have remained oblivious, right under our very noses the incursion of wasps has penetrated to very heartland of this great nation and found our defenses there lacking. Now even the most cherished of family traditions, from front-stoop cigarette breaks to backyard Fourth of July barbecues, must exist under the darkening cloud of this most perilous of threats to our national well-being.