Wasps. Scourge of summer. Raider of picnics. Surely, they are violent, dangerous and useless? Actually, they are not the monsters you might think, and there are many reasons we should try to love them.

Wasps are social insects, living in a colony of 5 to 10,000 workers and one queen. They generally only live for one summer, with new queens hibernating over winter to start a fresh colony in the spring.

They scrape wood from fences and trees with their powerful mouthparts, and mix it with saliva to build a ball-shaped nest to brood their larvae. This delicate construction of chewed-up wood pulp is said to have inspired Chinese inventor Cai Lun to create paper, some 2000 years ago.

The wasp larvae are hungry for meat, and every summer wasps capture around 14 million kilogrammes of insects to feed the growing young. This predatory role is essential for ecological balance, and without wasps farms and gardens, would likely be overrun by crop pests, like aphids, grasshoppers, and caterpillars. The adults on the other hand only drink nectar, visiting many types of flower to collect it, making them important but underrated pollinators.

The number one reason people hate wasps is their sting, even though most of the time they are reluctant to use it. Although not often dangerous to humans, it packs a punch painful enough to keep you, and other predators, well away! It is potent enough that it is even being investigated as a potential treatment for cancer.

The iconic black and yellow stripes which warn of this power are hijacked by many harmless insects as protection from predators, a camouflage known as batesian mimicry. It’s fair to say that wasps are ecologically vital, but, like their cousins the bees, their survival is threatened, with declines in species and numbers in the last 100 years. Unlike bees, because we dislike them so much, there is very little research into the potentially catastrophic repercussions of their extinction.

Towards September, as summer flowers come to an end and the workers start dying off, they seek out different high sugar foods, such as rotten fruit and, unfortunately, sweet human snacks. Although they can be annoying, consider everything they do over their short, hard-working lives, and maybe give these powerful yet fragile little creatures a chance. And, maybe, a little bit of your picnic.