Regicide?

I'm somewhat taken aback to discover that there are 9,000 or so species of wasp in the UK. This compares with around 250 species of bee. Only nine wasp species are 'social', the rest being solitary, but even then I would only have been able to name one other - the very impressive European hornet - without looking them up

This is the common wasp, Vespa vulgaris, the picnic and beer-garden botherer. These wasps have a similar life-cycle to all the 20+ UK social bee species, except the honeybee. Mated queens like this one over-winter as adults, hibernating wherever they can find shelter. At this time of year, she emerges and builds a small nest of 'paper', made from chewed up wood, raising the first 25 or so larvae herself. These then take on the task of nest-building, foraging and rearing the young, as the queen becomes more like a queen honeybee - permanently in the nest and laying eggs

Adult wasps (like adult bees) need very little protein and live on nectar, honeydew (ice cream, beer, jam sandwiches...). Wasp larvae need protein, and this is sourced by predation on other insects and invertebrates. They are the gardner's ally - taking aphid and other pest species. They also eat carrion: they will take the dead bees that have been ejected from the front of the hive, snip of the head and abdomen as offal, and fly away with the meaty thorax (all that muscle to power wings and legs!)

A beekeeper views wasps with a jaundiced eye. They will rob a colony of honey: entering the hive, sneaking - or fighting - their way to the honey stores and back out again to tell their friends. A weak colony, lacking strength in numbers to defend their entrance, can be killed in days by wasp attacks

Like their intrusion on afternoon tea on the lawn, this only tends to happen in late summer, as the wasp queen has cut down her laying. By that time of year, there are many of them, their hunting duties are now light, but their source of sugar - nectar - has all but dried up. They are literally starving to death, and hunger drives desperation in their search for sweetness - be it a victoria sponge or a mass attack on a vulnerable colony

So, pity the poor beekeeper who finds a queen wasp in the kitchen and has respect for this amazing insect (worker wasps can remember and recognise the facial features of other members of their colony - allowing admittance only to those they know). Compassion or realpolitik? A dilemma of Shakespearian dimensions

Reader, I let her go