When I was dividing some plants, an ambulance drove up and stopped behind my car. Someone on the allotments had had a...mishap? I hope it wasn't more serious than that! But as I watched him being wheeled to the ambulance (I am next to the road), it occurred to me* that life is precious, and that it gets to be more of a lottery the older you get.
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| Desdemona |
* now don't think I am a moron, I have know life is precious from when I was 16 and my beloved Gran died, and it suddenly hit me on that day that life is not perpetual. Just so you know.
There were at least 10 Asian hornets on there. Shock, horror!
Wasps, okay, I can deal with wasps. But hornets frighten me! Obviously I did not manage to get one properly on camera. Top left, that orangy thing, that's one. As soon as I tried to get a better photo, they scedadled. Which is sort of good to know. But still...
My comfy chair is right next to that Hedera. Damn.
My insect guide doesn't even mention the Asian hornet, only the European one (bottom left), as it did not occur in the Netherlands until this freaky hot year. Well: the Asian is larger than it appears in this pic and has the orange back of that wasp top right. It can grow to 2,5 cm and the queens are 3 to 3,5 cm.
They fly to forage up to 500 - 800m from their nest. Fingers crossed the ones in my plot flew their maximum lenght! Said amongst eachother "hey, dudes, let's see how far we can get from the nest".
French Hornet Kamikaze
The reason hornets frighten me, stems from a holiday 36 years ago. My then husband and me cycled, with our large Drentsche Patrijs dog in a dog carrier, down a hill in Dordogne. Great fun, until my ex gave an almighty shout, and fell off his bike. Luckily he landed in the grassy verge, but when I got to him, he was as white as a sheet, sweaty, and on the verge of passing out. He mumbled something that sounded like "wasp!".
Sure enough there was a stunned European hornet next to him, the speed of the collision had been huge. In a reflex I stamped on it, and only later realised it was a hornet, not a wasp. It had stung him on his bare upper arm, which immediately swol up. He was in great pain. I tried to suck out the poison (should you do that with hornets? I still don't know, but I thought better to try than not to try) and then washed his arm with water, and bathed his neck, and did everything I could think of to help him.
Fortunately he recovered after a bit, much helped by our dog Freya who washed his face thoroughly. She was a very motherly dog. His bike was okay too, so we were able to cycle on to the nearest village, where the arm was looked to by the pharmacist. Hubby got a tube of cream, felt very sorry for himself for the rest of the day, but that was the end of that adventure.
Mind you, it left me with a mix of respect of and utter fear for hornets!
And now they have arrived on our allotments!
It occurred to me that perhaps that poor man being stretchered off our allotments had been stung, and had an allergic reaction. But that is the way my mind works.
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Renée Grashoff
