Dear Joan: In a recent column you mentioned wasps. I'd like to suggest writing about paper wasps, which are nonaggressive unless you touch the hive. Paper wasps are beneficial.
I protect the ones under the eaves of my house by adding a cardboard fence to close them in and make it harder for birds to knock down the hive to eat the larvae.
When I add the protective fence, the paper wasps are alert and watch, but as long as I don't touch the nest, they don't attack. I am often as close as 6 inches while I do this.
On the other hand, I discourage hornets and yellow jackets.
_ B. Monte, San Ramon
Dear B.: I've never met anyone who takes such good care of paper wasps, and I applaud you for doing so. As you've said, the paper wasps are docile but will aggressively protect their nests. They are beneficial insects in the garden, eating caterpillars, beetles and spiders, and their larvae.
If others want to follow your lead, they should be careful that they have the right wasp. You don't want to get that close to yellow jackets.
Although at first glance, the two look an awful lot alike, their behavior can tell you many things. Yellow jackets are scavengers and will bedevil you at backyard cookouts. Paper wasps only eat live food _ insects _ and nectar, and avoid humans.
The easiest distinction between the two, if you can get close enough to see, is that paper wasps have orange antennae.
Both types of wasps help with pollination, but I'd much rather have the assistance of laid-back paper wasps than cantankerous yellow jackets.
Dear Joan: Let me provide a counterpoint to your recent column on foxes. We like to have them around.
We have lived in the Bay Area for over 20 years and have lived peacefully with the wildlife here _ coyotes, turkeys, deer, birds of every variety, foxes, boars, skunks, squirrels and the occasional mountain lion. Let's not forget mice, rats, moles and gophers.
The rats were the biggest problem. Roof rats eating our tomatoes, getting into our crawl space _ even though we dug heavy wire with small openings around the foundation _ from which they subsequently ate through the drywall and got into our kitchen cabinets; you could hear them at night in the walls.
They repeated that maneuver and got into our garage, crawled onto the warm (car) engine and chewed on the wiring; $2,400 damage. Repeated that the next year from a different hole and caused $1,000 damage.
Then we had a fox in the neighborhood, and the mole and gopher problem decreased until a neighbor trapped and killed the fox. Bad move. Now we have a fox under our house. We haven't seen or heard any rats or mice since. No more drywall inspections and repairs. No more rat droppings in the crawl space or in or on the mechanical equipment that is there, and the mole and gopher holes on our hillside have decreased again.
Given a choice between fox or no fox, I'll take the fox any day.
_ Karl Schaarschmidt, Lafayette
Dear Karl: It appears you are happily coexisting with the fox. Let's hope your neighbors will, too.
