Wasps
In this area wasps are something of a plague. Every year we have to eliminate multiple nests from our deck railing and even more from our wooden fences. We put out traps and catch them by the dozens, but this has no visible dent on the population as a whole. For some reason the wasps particularly like our red maple tree. In July and August you can watch as dozens of them hover around the tree.
This year there are no wasps. I have not seen a single nest on our property and I’ve only seen two flying around that I can recall. This is such a drastic change from the norm that I have spent some time wondering about it. I’d heard that there was a horrible bee virus sweeping across the country. The virus apparently kills whole hives. I wonder if this same virus kills off the wasps too.
The wasps were a nuisance to me. I didn’t like them. But the abrupt disappearance of all of them is a disruption in the local ecology and I wonder what the further repercussions will be.