June has come around so fast with lots of things happening.  The Spring bulbs are still flowering although nearing a transitional period to summer flowering plants.  Its such a positive time of year with new beginnings all around. The birds eggs are hatching into tiny fluff balls with legs, very cute but also noisy. Its these signs that should give us a new start coming  out of our Covid challenge to enjoy nature at its best.

This month we wanted to think about God’s creations that many people think have no purpose except as a threat to them.  God created every creature with a purpose so this month we wanted to look at wasps and their importance.

Everyone loves to hate wasps but this may make you think again.

Wasps are actually ancestors of bees but bees have forgotten how to hunt.  The most common ones we identify with are the yellow jackets and hornets at picnics and the like however they are only 1% of wasp species of which there are 100000. They are voracious predators and hoover up caterpillars on vegetable patches. Some farming communities use them as pest control.

Solitary wasp venom paralyses its prey and preserves it as food for their larvae. The venom contains lots of antibiotics and is used in traditional medicine. Solitary wasps can visit up to 960 plant species so can be good pollinators, whilst yellow jacket venom is being investigated as a cancer treatment.

Hornets are mentioned in three books of the Bible.

So for those that say they serve no purpose, it may be worth remembering that they are voracious predators  of pests, they provide powerful antibiotics and pollinate plants. So to budding gardeners, think twice before taking a rolled up newspaper to them.