The excitement started midmorning when I discovered a red wasp hovering around the porch rocker where I intended to sit to have a phone chat with my sister. Not wanting to share the space with a likely biter, I got the fly swatter. I killed the wasp three times with the fly swatter and stepped on it for good measure.
In the five minutes it took to put up the fly swatter and returned with my water and phone, a contingent of small ants had surrounded the dead wasp. They quickly began to move it in an easterly trajectory along the brick edge of the porch. Little daunted by humps and cracks in the brick, the ants reassembled to get the wasp over the rough spots. Their jostling made the wasp twitch like it still lived, but I knew better. I had killed it four times! In a very few minutes, they came to the first post. No problem! Again, they reassembled to move the wasp forward and around. All this time, there were a few ants roaming forward and back to the group. I could only guess they were scouts leading the way.
I was intrigued. As they kept a straight course, I wondered if they had a plan and where it would go. Would they go off the porch at some point? Did they have a nest somewhere? They seemed to be so intentional. I didn’t have long to wait. When they got to the far side of the second post, they stopped. Then the wasp really started fidgeting from all the rough and tumble of the ants all over it. I had to remind myself that I had killed it four times. Slowly but surely, the wasp began to disappear before my eyes. I couldn’t see the ants taking tiny pieces, but that seemed to be the only explanation as they hovered near a small hole in the post and flipped the wasp this way and that.
Our excitement got a temporary interruption from a bad thunderstorm with lightning, sideways rain, and high winds. I sat inside and wondered what had happened to my new friends who were exposed in the weather. I checked once the storm stopped and it was safe to return to the porch. The ants were back with only the thorax of the wasp left. They appeared to be working on getting it through the tiny hole in the post. By late afternoon, the edge of the porch was so clean it looked to have been vacuumed. Their job complete, only an occasional ant wandered in or out of their small hole in the post.
I’m sure the ants are thankful for the wasp I killed four times and donated to their cause, and I thank them for a very entertaining day!