Queen Wasp's thoughts … during early May

I slept through the cold in a snug little nook.
I woke, drank some nectar, then flew for a look, –
to scrape scraps of wood from a post or a pole,
and chew it, and search out a suitable hole, –
a hole in the ground by the root of a tree, –
my colony sheltered where no-one would see.
The wood I had chewed and had made to a paste
(for splinters don’t hurt me, I don’t mind the taste),
I spat out, – it dried, made a papery wall,
and soon I’d a nest like a little round ball.
Inside there were cells, each six-sided; – I laid
an egg in each safe little room I had made.
Those eggs are now larvae, but when they’re full fed,
they’ll change into workers, and help me instead.
They’ll make my nest bigger, and help feed my brood
by clearing out pests from your garden for food.
We don’t like to sting you, but if you attack,
we may get quite frightened, assaulting you back.
When summer is ending, my workers can laze,
and gather round picnics the rest of their days.
Some males and new Queens will develop that mate:
and those Queens alone may survive the long wait
’til Spring comes again, the time to get busy
in rearing new wasp-tribes in nurseries cosy.
[We sometimes build nests in unpopular spaces
– in attics, or sheds, but they’re not the best places
for you or for us, – my exquisite production
is praised, but removed, – we’d no planning permission.]

So, who built our complex construction-machines?
designing our intricate, organised genes?
 

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