Unknown to known: mysterious wasps

We’ve all had encounters with wasps. These insects are one of the least understood, in terms of their lives, their habits, their contributions to the world we live in. Does knowing more change anything? Join me on this podcast as I explore more about wasps, aeroplanes and how deeper understanding of roles and interconnectedness is related to a key aspect of the Maverick formula.

Transcript

Unknown to known: mysterious wasps

Hello Fellow Mavericks, welcome to another exciting episode of the ‘Ordinary Maverick’ podcast.

Spring is in the air! It’s the time of the year when one naturally feels a sense of anticipation, of new ness of hope. It’s something to do with seeing the trees full of leaves, flowers blooming, sunshine and just a general sense of happiness with people enjoying the outdoors. It’s also the time when the school year ends and all over the world it’s vacation time. Families planning and going on vacations together. 

Here, where we live, spring is a wonderful time of the year. Sanjana and I love the uniqueness of all seasons, we must admit…and as Mavericks enjoy and explore what each turn of our planet Earth brings us, as new and old and lived experiences. Although, spring is special in many ways. Our garden turns into a riot of colors and we see an increase in the visitors to our garden. Ha ha….a family of deer at our doorstep, hummingbirds and many other birds including woodpeckers, owls, of course there are the bunnies, and moles and then there are the insects!. 

Which brings me to the topic of this podcast, wasps. But before I delve into our connection with wasps, here are some basic facts of this magnificent and diverse insect. 

Wasps are distinguished from ants and bees by various behavioral and physical characteristics. They have a slender, smooth body and legs with relatively few hairs. 

They are generally predatory or parasitic and have stingers with few barbs that can be removed easily from their victims. There are two broad categories of wasps, solitary and social. The solitary wasps live alone and social wasps which live in colonies. There are tens of thousands of species of wasps and the vast majority are solitary in habit. The social ones have about 1000 species within the family.

Most species build isolated nests, with the vast majority nesting in the ground, digging tunnels in the soil in which to lay their eggs. While there are many species, the social wasps within the family Vespidae are the best-known species of wasps. Here are some interesting facts of how the nest comes into being. The queen, a fertilized female, begins the colony in the spring by building a small nest and laying eggs that hatch into workers. These workers enlarge the paper like nest, which is composed of chewed dry plant material, usually wood, that has been mixed with saliva and regurgitated. Depending on the species, the nest can be found in cavities in the soil, in tree trunks or hanging from leaves, branches or overhangs in buildings.

Now wasps are a nuisance right, they can sting but they can be irritating and frightening to some plus a threat to those allergic to their sting. 

But they are fascinating insects too!

Our interest in wasps was spurred by seeing a wasp’s nest on our signpost on the homestead grounds. Sanjana got back from a walk and spoke about the nest and yes, I had noticed it too. 

Well, both of us were intrigued and wanted to dig a bit deeper in our understanding of wasps. Firstly, wasps are very common in the Western part of the United States given the weather. Yellowjackets and paper wasps are the most common. Typically, they have slender bodies with a narrow waist and appear smooth and shiny. They prey on insects like caterpillars, flies, crickets and other pests. They are generally not aggressive but will sting in defense of its colony or itself. 

Here is where it gets interesting …Like humans, wasps seem to recognize faces as more than the sum of their parts. This is known as holistic processing like how human facial recognition works. So yes, paper wasps can recognize faces of individuals, a trait uncommon among insects. So, watch out, they can recognize you! It’s a trait and skill that helps them identify threats and members of their colony.

The cold weather ultimately kills the males, workers and foundation queen. The only wasps that survive the winter are young, fertilized queens. And then the whole cycle repeats itself come spring… 

So what attracts wasps, it’s food sources like fruit and sweet drinks, strong smells like perfume and bright colored clothes. They don’t like mint though. And planting mint or spraying pepper mint spray repels wasps.

But most importantly, Wasps play an essential role in ecosystems. They are pollinators, pest controllers, with ongoing research in their venom playing a potential role in cancer treatments and their nests and larvae a role in sustainable food production. 

It’s interesting how we value bees and ants, perhaps because we know more about them and dislike wasps. Ask around about wasps and you’ll see this in an instant. Everyone knows the value of bees as pollinators, as honey producers and a whole lot more but little is known about wasps apart from their sting! 

Mavericks, does this sound familiar with so many aspects of life? We tend to form opinions and act with the knowledge we have and disregard or nullify the potential impact of things we know less of or know only one aspect.

Do we know that some plants are pollinated exclusively by wasps. Without wasps, elegant plants such as 100 or so species of orchids would become extinct! Like many of you, I love orchids too. the next time you admire an orchid or bring one home, think of the wasp that helped realize this. 

Wasps are the third most important predators of insects after birds and spiders and we have research that shows in the UK alone, wasps eat 14,000 tons of insects each summer!  

Bottom line. Let’s not make it a practice to ignore, discard things that we know little about. Curiosity and the desire to learn is the only constant for a rich and rewarding life. 

I recall an interesting conversation about flying and planes. My father-in-law spent his career flying planes and shared some interesting insights into the world of aviation. One often feels the most important person is the pilot flying the plane, right? Well, it’s a yes and a no, no doubt the pilot is important. But there are many more than just the pilot…let me share about three of them here…. ; the engineer who inspects the plane before flying and signs off certifying ‘fit to fly’ , the guy who removes the “chock” and the aircraft marshall who guide the planes to and from the gates…all are equally critical. Sanjana recounts her childhood days of watching her dad walking around the plane regardless of the weather, come rain, sunshine, hail or snow, inspecting and doing the final certification before passengers were allowed to board. Today, the world of computers and technology has taken over this function, but no doubt it was an important one for a safe flight. 

Now, some of you might wonder what is a “Chock”, what does it do and why we use such a primitive tool for a multi million dollar plane. “Chocks” are those triangular wedges that are placed on either side of the wheels when the plane reaches its parking bay and prevents the aircraft from rolling away…. Hey wait a minute, now you must be thinking …don’t planes have brakes to hold it stationery on the ground !!! Of course, they do have brakes hahahhahah. They do have parking brakes that can be applied once the aircraft comes to a stop using the normal toe brakes. However there is a critical problem here, as many a times after landing, the brakes get super heated. Long term exposure to high temperatures can drastically affect the durability of certain brake assembly components. It can also be a fire hazard because most modern airliners have hydraulically actuated brakes.

So, when parked at the gate, parking brake is released for long with the aircraft chocked. This releases the brake components from the rotors which allow better dissipation of heat and any potential hazard…well well so much for the Chock’s and thus they too need to be removed before the plane can move after the go ahead for “fit to fly”. 

Aircraft marshall is the one who gives the final thumbs up for a plane to fly. The person who gives the go ahead on the ground and shows the way for the pilot to leave the parking stand and start getting to the runway. Without that signal, the aircraft cannot leave the stand and obviously cannot fly! So you see we didn’t know or knew very little about these three, yet all three are critical and run in a sequence seamlessly and we as passengers just enjoy the flights in bliss !! 

Fellow Mavericks, we live in an interconnected world and ecosystem. It’s easy to get swept up and in the pressures and perceptions around us and what the world thinks of as important. Here is where the Maverick formula comes in. remember the first element, ‘Go with your gut’….well, in life, making decisions on career, on persons, on situations, always and I say always, Go with your gut’. If you feel there’s something more here, some more digging…if your instinct calls to pause and learn further…do it. There’s always something more to discover under the surface and often you need that to take the next step forward. 

Just like in the case of the mysterious wasp, dig deeper and get fascinated by this insect…or then the three critical individuals other than the pilot alone for a plane there’s a lot more to what ‘meets the wasp’! or should I say meets the plane !!

What do you think?  Write your comments, share your feedback at ‘theordinarymaverick@gmail.com’ and follow me on Instagram #theordinarymaverick.  I love hearing from you. 

This is Ajey, signing off and wishing you have an amazing day! Keep well. 

This podcast series was put together as a team effort from the Bhardwaj family.  Concept, design, title, researchers and reviewers: Ajey, Sanjana, Avantika and Niharika Bhardwaj; Script– Sanjana; Cover design – Niharika. All rights reserved.