Two inch wasp found on trampoline

Rodney Edwards • Published 19 Aug 2010 16:00 0 Comments

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Chloe and Megan Atwell with their gigantic garden visitor.

THIS is the giant wood wasp that caused a real buzz for one Fermanagh family last week.

Nine-year-old twins Chloe and Megan Atwell got a surprise when they found the 40 millimetre insect sitting on their trampoline.

The keen explorers were fascinated by their rather unusual visitor. Their mother Victoria however, wasn’t, and made a bee-line for the door!

“When I seen size of that thing I was out the door. I absolutely hate wasps! I was stung twice last year. My husband Cyril wouldn’t mind them but they’re not for me,” laughed the child-minder from Maguiresbridge.

“The girls have explorer kits so took a great interest in having a closer look at the wasp with their wee magnifying glasses. They’ve had a fascination with little bugs and insects from an early age. You’d should have heard the hum of its wings when it was put in the jar, it was unbelievable,” she added.

The Atwell family were left bee-mused by their new friend: “We didn’t have a clue what it was. None of us had seen anything like it before, so we brought it into the Townhall and they told us it was a wood wasp. It’s actually completely harmless. They phoned me afterwards and said, you don’t mind if we let it go? I said, I don’t care what you do with it, I don’t want to see it again!” laughed Victoria.

The Director of Environmental Health at Fermanagh District Council, Robert Forde, says his team have removed 83 wasp nests in the county this year.

“I would suspect the very good May and June period has a lot to do with it. I did think with the very bad frost we had there would have been fewer wasps around this year but that hasn’t been the case. Certainly compared to the last couple of years there has been an increase,” he said.

Mr. Gibson added: “But there’s any amount of nests that don’t annoy anybody, like in a field, in a bank or along the roadside. It’s only when there’s a nest near the front door, the garden shed, the roof space or coal house that people get stung and contact us. Those are the sort of locations where people in Fermanagh are finding these nests. A lot of people see a wasp and they are waving their hands about, which is the worst thing to do. You need to stay cool and calm. Don’t poke at the nest. Give it a wide berth,” he said.

This article appeared in Impartial Reporter 19 Aug 10

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