On the larger wasps

THERE are other wasps too, larger and related more to the hornet family. These spend their lives, make their nests, and produce their young in hollow trees, oaks for preference. Like other insects, they hide themselves away in winter. ¹ They are bright yellow, turning more to a yellowy-brown colour ² along the stripes, like the smaller wasps, and are armed with deadly stings, through which they squirt their poison into other living creatures. By this means they are capable of killing young foals, or even a man who has been unwise enough to sleep on the ground without covering himself up. Sometimes their stab brings on cramp, pain in the shins, and weakness of the knees. ³ In the Göta language these wasps are called bool getingh. ⁴ They appear to have given rise to that well-known saying, ‘Don’t rouse hornets,’ for if you should irritate one of them, they all stream out in a fearful swarm to seek vengeance. If their molester does not run to make his escape or defend himself with protective clothing, they will wound him time and time again, injecting poison with their stings, with the result that they either take his life on the spot, or weaken him so severely that he is rendered altogether helpless for a long period. When they want to stop them emerging from their oaks, that is, to obstruct the opening to prevent them flying out, men take a great quantity of birch-bark mingled with pine wood and, setting fire to it, hang it by the entrance; since they have only this single exit from their nest, they are suffocated and destroyed by the flames and smoke. Those especially eager to exterminate these pernicious insects are the farmers who keep a large stock of mares in their pastures for breeding, because they are afraid that their foals, for which they expect to realize a handsome profit, may be stung to death by wasps like these. ⁵