Don’t panic! Wasps do more good than harm

ONE of my most abiding memories of childhood is a coach trip to Whipsnade Zoo with my friend Sharon and her family.

An unfortunate accident with the bottle of orange squash her mum had brought for our picnic resulted in swarms of wasps following us wherever we went and the inevitable consequence that I got painfully stung, as did her little sister Miriam.

The following years have not made me any more positive towards wasps, having been stung on the top of my head and my daughter at the age of six sustaining a nasty sting on her hand in an outdoor swimming pool, which made her cry more pitifully than I have ever heard her cry before.

So it wasn’t with any pleasure that I realised we had a wasps’ nest in the garden this summer. Thankfully, it was on the outside of the garage, not above our bedroom window which has been their favoured abode in the past and has necessitated keeping our window shut throughout the hot weather.

For many of us, that familiar buzz and flash of yellow and black is the cue for panicked flapping and swatting. Wasps don’t, in general, enjoy a good press.

But why? After all, in comparison bees are far more popular and recognised for their importance to the ecosystem.

Many of us, myself included, plant flowers to attract them and enjoy watching them move from flower to flower collecting nectar and spreading pollen in the process. I am very proud that the town has recently been granted “Bee Friendly” status — but would we want “Wasp Friendly” status too? It must be said that wasps don’t help themselves. There are an incredible 7,000 species of wasps living in the UK. The majority are parasitoids — they lay eggs inside a host such as a caterpillar and when the eggs hatch they eat the unfortunate host from inside out. Hardly endearing.

But maybe we should try to like wasps a bit more. They play an important part in the ecosystem in several ways.

As accidental pollinators, they carry pollen from plant to plant in their search for nectar. While adult wasps only eat sugar and carbohydrate, their young need protein which they get from killing and eating spiders and other insects.

As an apex predator wasps keep their numbers in check. In fact, it’s estimated that wasps in the UK kill and eat some 14 million kilos of caterpillars and greenfly each year. They’re the gardener’s friend.

Avoid wasp stings by covering food and drink, cleaning up quickly after eating and avoid sitting near common wasp attractants such as rotting fruit and bins. Wasps are attracted by bright colours so light-coloured or white clothing will help to discourage them.

Lastly, if a wasp does land on you, resist the temptation to swat at it, which is more likely to make it sting. Stay still and let it fly away on its own.

It may be hard to love wasps. But we need them nonetheless.

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AN encouraging aspect of many environmentally friendly changes is that, besides being good for the environment, they are good for human health as well.

One of the earliest environmental regulations to be introduced in the UK was the Clean Air Act of 1956 which was in response to the “Great Smog of London”, a severe air pollution event that lasted from Friday, December 5 to Tuesday, December 9, 1952.

A combination of weather conditions and the burning of coal led to a thick layer of smog — a combination of smoke and fog over London.

Visibility was so severely restricted that it even penetrated indoors. It was the UK’s worst pollution event, with an estimated 10,000 people killed and 100,000 made ill by the smog’s effect on the respiratory system.

The Clean Air Act, giving powers to local authorities to restrict emissions in certain areas and mandating a move towards smokeless fuels, was pivotal in linking environmental pollution to human health and has been updated several times since as different pollutants and technologies have become important.

The British Medical Association has long recognised that environmentally friendly changes such as better insulated homes, electric cars, more walking and cycling, less meat and more plants are all changes that will benefit both human health and the environment.

So, I was surprised to read about one change that had not appeared on my radar at all. Like 54 per cent of the British population, we have a gas hob. I like it, it works well and, to be frank, I’ve never given it a thought in terms of emissions of greenhouse gases. I’m not sure why, as I have spent a lot of time looking at replacing our gas boiler with an air source heat pump.

But gas cooking, like burning all fossil fuels, releases carbon dioxide and unburned methane into the atmosphere, both of which are potent greenhouse gases.

Gas hobs also produce nitrogen dioxide which, while not being a greenhouse gas, is a harmful air pollutant and is linked to respiratory problems. It’s estimated that gas cooking accounts for about two per cent of all UK carbon emissions. A small, but significant amount.

Frank Kelley, professor of community health and policy at Imperial College, spelt out the health consequences of cooking with gas in a report from the European Public Health Alliance (www.clasp.ngo)

He said: “Cooking on gas adds to the health burden of indoor air pollution, emitting harmful pollutants such as NO2 that can impact virtually the entire human body.”

The report details a horrifying list of health impacts including asthma, increased susceptibility to lung infections, impacts on the central nervous system, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer.

The last have a particular resonance for me as two of my older female relatives, lifelong
non-smokers, have both been diagnosed with early-stage lung cancer, thankfully with a full cure.

An electric hob both cuts your emissions and promotes your health. The Future Homes Standard, which will mandate building standards for new build homes from 2026, does not ban gas hobs but new developments are not being connected to the gas grid so installing gas hobs will become a lot more difficult in future.

Electric hobs are also cleaner, safer and cheaper for developers to install and maintain, especially if the development won’t have a gas supply for other purposes.

In the meantime, if you have a gas hob, then ventilate well when you cook and if you can replace it with an electric one then do so. It will benefit you as well as the planet.