Summer here in Australia is coming to an end.

If you look carefully, you can see the signs. Yellow splashes through trees as leaves begin turning for Autumn. (Fall). Early light no longer flares through curtains as days shorten. The clicking and hum of insects quietens. Soon there’ll be a late afternoon slight chill as if winter gnaws at the edge of our days.

The wasps near my garage probably sense the change.

Their nest honeycombs part of the wall. About three months ago they moved in. Barely three of them at first. Now there’d be well over one hundred. They are what we call a native species, small with abdomens striped dull yellow and black.

They toil together, preparing tiny compartments for babies still to emerge. They remind me of rows of office windows as people work and strive behind glass. Or the half-finished houses in my suburb as carpenters stand on scaffolding, staple guns in their hands banging through summer’s dry heat. The wasp nest grows bigger, as the houses under construction do. I’ve Googled the wasps and found out they are known as paper wasps. Perhaps a reference to the fragility of their nest. The nest itself is wrapping around a corner and I speculate whether there is one up there, unrolling architecture plans and checking measurements.

Living so close to my garage door, they have to endure the door’s opening and closing each day. It must be like living on a fault line to them. Six on the Richter scale every time the door shudders up or down. But they remain calm. Perhaps the shudder is as normal as wind or rain to them. They ignore me as I troop past, never coming near me. Whilst they can sting, they are not at all aggressive.

If any species has a philosophy of live and let live, it is them.

So I extend the same courtesy. If anything, they are helping me. I see them around my modest garden, pollinating flowers alongside the bees.

The nest is noticeable to the extent visitors tell me to get rid of them. Do something about them. Aren’t wasps dangerous? I notice on our Facebook community page someone has posted a picture of a nest, except asking for a recommendation of either a spray or pest exterminator. I make a plea to let the wasps be but doubt it will be persuasive, even with a few “likes.”

I can’t entirely blame people.

Large parts of Australia are inhabited by European wasps, an invasive species that supposedly stowed away to here on a container ship. These are aggressive and eating outside in some places risks their landing in salads or worse, crawling into cans and bottles of drink, a nasty surprise for anyone drinking direct from the bottle. Whilst European wasps are slightly larger and brighter than the paper variety, to many there is no difference and fear and hatred are directed equally to both.

People react to them as we can to what we don’t understand. Assume something threatens us, wishes us harm, or seeks to attack for no reason.

Yet, it’s a view often based on appearance, race, or what media stokes in us. Our lives fill with distrust, anger, and resentment. Yet when I look up at their nest I see them with similar values to what many of us aspire to. Being part of our community, caring for our younger residents, and doing our best to contribute.

The time paper wasps have is limited. Once I encountered them at a previous address without taking much notice. During May and the first real brittle cold I found their bodies amongst the leaves I swept up. Their job done.

Once they are gone there’ll be a sleeping queen hibernating under bark or in a crevasse somewhere. And with her, the next generation.

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