Make Friends with a Wasp!?
What if I told you that you should make friends with a wasp?!! You probably would think I am out of my mind, but if I told you that it will save you a lot of money and save your health too, you may want to find out how. If you have been following my stories you will recall that I often refer to my grandmother’s garden. So, you won’t mind if I go back there to extract a tall childhood tale…
Long, long ago deep in the village of the rural areas of my country, where tarmac roads were scarce and only found on the main street of major towns, the rural highways were a few tracks that led to the local market. In those days we got healthcare services from the village dispensary. Under the bare roof, which you could see by simply looking up, were massive hives of wasps. The wasps went out and came in as they wished. No, they did not reside there to access the health services, we humans, came for. They lived at the hospital as an appropriately located abode with suitable structures to accommodate their communal existence. The one thing we children were often reminded was not to disturb the wasp nest. Wasps won’t bother you unless you antagonize them. So, we all grew up knowing that wasps were to be found in buildings, on roofs, trees and other high out of the way places. The cardinal rule was simple, wasps were not to be disturbed.
Nevertheless, wasps could also be found in the open fields where we went to get grass for cows and graze the animal herds. In those places the wasp protocol was forgotten and sometimes ignored. It was then that we got stung by the little creatures. To be honest, apart from a few times when we were stung by accident, there were times and places where we threw one or two stones at the wasp nest and ran as fast as our little legs could carry us. Those whose legs did not move fast enough paid the price of a well-positioned sting in an embarrassingly visible body part. In those days, it was child’s play and a laughing matter to see a friend with a swollen eye, who would not tell his mother the truth about what really happened. If they told the truth, they would end up with a double punishment for disobedience. In the fields wasps would be seen carrying their prey, their own food. Usually, the prey were many types of caterpillars. Somehow there were so many caterpillars that wasps had more than enough food. I mean, for a truth, in those days caterpillars would grow quite healthy and multiply fast. Today, we struggle with caterpillars as pests, probably having more wasps would give a different outcome. “More food for wasps than destruction to crops”. It amazes me today that we need wasps because I know there were very many in the old days. As a scientist I am looking for ways to bring them back in their numbers because I think they have something to teach us and more so do for us. Wasps are one example, but spiders, ladybugs and lacewings, among other insects, are friendly insects that feed on pests that damage crops. All these were plenty in my grandmothers’ garden because their foods were abundant, safe to the environment and available. Their shelters were plenty with no one to disturb them in their daily routines. Above all, they were not being killed by chemicals.
People who grew up in the village may recall that we chewed, inhaled and took tea made from various plant concoctions to cure stomach ailments and headaches. In my grandmothers’ garden, collecting plant leaves and either boiling, drying, inhaling, fumigating or pounding them was a normal strategy against non-friendly insects and diseases. Whenever disturbing creatures appeared at our door step or in the home, there were plants and substances that would be used to handle these incidences. My grandmother placed a plant, which I now know as Mexican marigolds on doorsteps so that red ants which lined up towards her bedroom made a U-turn to their colonies. Marigolds and many other plants are plenty and diverse. Their presence chases out insects and uniquely harbors bees and some butterflies, giving shades and leaves fall to make good soils. To keep insects away from our household food reserves my grandmother mixed ashes with grains and no insects damaged them. Grains were mixed with ash from special trees and plant branches so they remained free from pests yet edible. Other types of ash were used to make ingredients that softened meat and vegetables making meals extremely tasty and easily digestible. Unlike my grandmothers’ tactic of causing ants to make a U-turn, pesticides are today sprayed in the fields to kill wasps, and other friendly insects. Experts tell us that there are immensely more insect species than the total global population of human beings. Surprisingly only less than one per cent of these insects are what we call pests! If we carefully rear the other 99% would they not help us keep the environment in balance.
Today, many plants, some of which were also used for ailments are sprayed or fumigated with chemicals to suppress and repel insects. A great deal of our food crops are sprayed with chemicals which we ingest along with dead plants and dead insects. But we can use both plants and insects as repellants. We must be bold enough to ask, can we recreate our environments so that we do not need chemicals at all? Can we make an environment where insects, plants and animals can safely coexist?
© Angela Mkindi, 2023
Edited by Allan Bukusi
Stories from a changing environment
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