Last month when the family was here cleaning, Cristino noticed that we had a big wasp nest up close to the roof on the wall by the back door.  This sparked a big discussion on the best way to get rid of it.  First he wanted to just get the spray can of BOP (the country’s most powerful insecticide) and spray the nest. 

  “Cris, you could have a lot of angry wasps because you couldn’t get them all in the first try. Thanks but no thanks.” 

  “We could smoke them out,” he suggested.  “You use a long palm frond, soak the end in kerosene, and hold it up to the nest.  The smoke makes them sleepy and then you BOP them.”

  Visions of the house on fire filled my mind. 

  “I can do that,” Rick says, “but we want to wait until evening when they’re all in the nest.”

  For some reason, whenever nightfall came, Rick was thinking about other things, so we procrastinated.  As we put things off, the nest grew, and the number of wasps doubled.

   A few days later Salvador (our palapa-builder) came over with more orchids.  He was accompanied by his wife Irma and two of their children.  Salvador is a Mayan, about 5’ 6”, dark, very wiry and strong and brave. He has a strong connection to nature and how things work on that level.  He noticed the wasp nest and offered to take care of it for me.  His English is very limited but we worked it out.  He wanted a plastic bag, a strong one with no holes in it. I was mystified as to how this would help but after a bit of searching through our bag collection, we found what he considered the perfect bag.  It was a typical grocery store plastic bag, but heavier than usual.

  Salvator rolled the top of the bag down so that it had a nice strong neck on it.  He took a sturdy wooden kitchen chair and placed it under the nest.  When he climbed up on the chair, the rest of us moved back as far as we could and still see the action.  He crouched under the nest watching carefully.  Suddenly, as quick as a cat, he covered the nest with the  bag, gathered the bag at the neck, and pulled the nest off the wall.  The nest was wrapped up tightly inside the bag, and you could see the wasps crawling and buzzing inside. Boy, were they mad!  I was really glad we had a strong bag to contain them. His son Daniel (age 10) was fascinated and took the bag from Dad.  He held it up to his ear and grinned; he had a new toy. Irma had turned around and was talking to her daughter, so Daniel quietly snuck up behind her, and held the nest up to her ear.  She jumped and ducked while he laughed.  

  Salvador asked me what I wanted to do with the wasps.  What a question!  I didn’t want to do anything with them and I asked him if he could take care of it. 

  “No problem” he says, “we will turn them loose in the bush.”  The family mounted up on their bicycles and with Daniel in charge of the wasps, off they went.  

  Only a few wasps were missed and they decided to start a new nest on the other side of the door. This time Rick smoked them out before the nest was of any size.  He wrapped a stick with a kerosene rag, set fire to it, and poked the nest with it until it caught fire and dropped to the ground.  We sprayed the site with BOP to discourage any new construction, and now we have a big smoky place on the wall to remind us of the adventure.  So far, there have been no new nests.