I GET twitchy about taking holidays at the end of August, because it’s the only time of year when people (and the media) in Britain seem to want to talk about wasps and I have spent my career trying to change people’s minds about these fascinating insects.

Typically, the British wasp hysteria season peaks around August bank holiday, when we’re squeezing the last alfresco dining out of summer. Inevitably, along comes a yellowjacket wasp or two. The media follow with headlines themed on wasps on the attack. My colleagues and I step in with a defence of wasps, about their important role in ecosystems as pest controllers and pollinators and how their life history helps explain their behaviour.