Watch out for wasps as the weather gets warmer - but make sure they really are what they seem to be.
They may be friendlier than you think is the advice from Canberra's leading insect expert.
Jim Bariesheff, who deals with wasps and bees for the ACT government, said there had already been a case of someone spraying a swarm of friendly insects because she thought they were wasps.
The victims of the cloud of insecticide were actually hover flies which are very beneficial to the environment and don't sting anyone.
They mimic wasps but are not wasps. They are native insects which are very active at the moment pollinating the glorious foliage of Canberra.
Not only were the misidentified dead insects beneficial but spraying them also kills pretty well everything else the spray lands on.
"If you see a swarm and you don't know what it is, call the hotline (6258 5551) to find out what it is," said Mr Bariesheff.
He said that people also worry if a round hole appears in a lawn.
Householders sometimes think it's a wasp nest and get in a tizzy about it.
But it's actually been created by the wolf spider which, despite its fearsome name, is a friend to humans because it attacks cockroaches.
The two big concerns at the moment are European invaders - European wasps and bees.
With the onset of summer, they swarm and often need removing from holes.
"The most common nesting sites are in wall cavities, holes in the ground, roof voids and even in conifer trees," said Mr Bariesheff whose company CoreEnviro Solutions is contracted to the ACT government.
"When a European wasp queen makes her nest in one of these locations, a steady stream of wasps will be seen leaving and returning to the nest as the day warms up. If a nest is disturbed, they will become aggressive and sting to protect their nest."
There is a website to report sightings so swarms can be moved (www.ewasp.com.au).
But bees and wasps are lynch-pins in our ecosystem. They help flowers reproduce by taking pollen from males to females. Without wasps or bees (or butterflies), remote sex between male and female flowers becomes impossible.
If that delicate but wonderful system is disrupted, other pestilential insects may thrive.
Native flowers thrive best through native bees and wasps. They have become suited to each other.
Mr Bariesheff said that the imported European variety of bee - the honey bee - was, therefore, not as good a pollinator as native, Australian types of bee.
But European honey bees were pushing out native bees in some areas. The bee expert wanted governments to do more to address the problem because imported bees don't pollinate flowers as well as native bees do.
A few years ago, the tomato growing industry wanted to import another European variety - the bumble bee - because bumble bees pollinate tomato plants (which themselves were an imported species).
Using bumble bees would have brought the cost of growing tomatoes down. Growers said the bees could be contained within glass houses but the government rejected the application - if the bees escaped they would become feral and disrupt the delicate balance of the Australian ecosystem.
In an average summer in Canberra, perhaps a thousand nests of European wasps are dealt with by Mr Bariesheff and his colleagues. There are more than a hundred wasp stings in the ACT, mostly from European wasps (ewasps as he calls them).
This spring, though, has been unusually kind to wasps and bees because of the heat and moisture which has meant boom time for pollen.
The tell-tale sign of a nest in a hole in the wall or roof is a steady stream of wasps emerging and returning as the day warms up.
"If a nest is disturbed, they can become aggressive in protecting the nest and may sting," Mr Bariesheff said.
"If stung, a cold pack may be used to relieve the pain. If there is evidence of a more severe reaction or the victim is known to be allergic to wasp and bee venom, medical attention should be sought immediately," Mr Bariesheff said.
