Many people equate “wasps” with these yellow-and-black insects, but there are over 100,000 species lessy doang/getty images
EVERYBODY loves bees. They are celebrated for their glorious honey, cooperative work ethic and commercially valuable pollination services. In a 2019 survey, 55 per cent of respondents chose bees as the species they most wanted to save, above the likes of elephants and tigers.
How differently we see wasps. These most unwelcome picnic guests have been reviled for millennia. Ancient Greek essayist Plutarch described wasps as degenerate bees. The very word “waspish” summons up ideas of irritability, implying they are quick to anger, spiteful and vindictive. And that’s just the regular wasp or yellow jacket. Our attitudes to the largest wasp species, hornets, are even more negative. The tabloids hawk horror stories about how the invasive Asian hornet, Vespa velutina, threatens honey production and native pollinators in the UK. Meanwhile, persecution of the huge but docile European hornet, Vespa crabro, continues, fuelled by fear and ignorance, even though its numbers are declining. Few people seem to care.
But are we judging this diverse group of insects unfairly? Certainly, our perceptions are ill-informed. There are whole institutes dedicated to studying bees, while wasp research is in the doldrums. Limited funds attract few projects, the results of which are often misconstrued in the press, bolstering an already negative stereotype. In fact, what we have learned about wasps tells a different story. Far from being bothersome and vindictive, they make valuable contributions to ecosystems, the economy and even our health.
Take ecosystem services – a buzz phrase of…
Article amended on 30 March 2020
We corrected our illustration of a pollinating wasp.
