Hornets and Butterflies

There is an adolescent willow oak tree outside my front door. It’s a very nice little tree, lots of nice, narrow green leaves, birds like to sit in its branches, which I can see from my couch when I look out the window, squirrels like to jump off of it onto my roof with a loud thump and then a skittering scamper. I heartily approve of this tree and its location. (Unlike the poor azaleas along the base of the wall, which the apartment people never do anything to, and are thus confused and sad.)

Lately, though, within the past month, a strange thing has happened to my tree. It has become infested by, or at least very attractive to, the largest bee-like flying things I have ever seen up close. Mark tells me they are in fact bald-faced hornets. Hmm, now, looking at that Wikipedia page, I am unsure. I haven’t seen the “large football-shaped paper nest” yet, but maybe they’re in the process of building it, or maybe I just haven’t looked in the right place. They mostly seem to spend their time crawling around on the trunk. Anyway, they are huge. Probably 1-2 inches long, and big and fat, with very big wings that buzz.

But the really weird thing is that they appear to be cohabitating in the tree… with butterflies. I’m sure, to the bees/wasps/hornets and butterflies, this makes perfect sense, as I’m told the hornets drive off all the things that would eat the butterflies, and do not themselves eat, nor are they eaten by, butterflies. But to a human, who has such normally fearful thoughts about enormous wasps, and such happy, pretty thoughts about butterflies, it seems a very strange juxtaposition. Though these are at least black butterflies, with blue spots, so maybe they are more sinister?

I wonder if they are building a nest. It seems like it’s the wrong season to be doing so, since it is coming up fall, not spring. If they are, though, that could be a problem. Right now, they buzz around and occasionally come over the sidewalk where I have to pass to get to my door, but never really fly at me or seem very interested in me. If they were protecting a nest, though, it could be different. I have no desire to have to fight off enormous bees to leave the house, nor a particular desire to kill them all. I hope they just keep ignoring me and go away when it gets colder.