France in Focus

We have had our wood burner for 18 years. I keep a handy supply of wood in a converted wine cask near the fire. This year we have had an unusually high number of wasps overwintering in logs on the wood pile and they accidentally get transported indoors by me. Normally, the wasp will wake up in the morning, buzz around the living room for a while and a window is opened and off they go.
I am guilty of despatching 3 wasps this week in one go. I’d loaded up the fire for an evening burn and I heard the buzzing sound of a wasp. There were 3 in the wood burner. I couldn’t risk opening it up so I’m afraid they met their maker.

I hate killing anything unnecessarily but sometimes it happens.
Local advice here was to put out traps at the beginning of March to catch Asian hornet queens. Perhaps I caught them all last autumn but so far this spring I haven't caught a single one. Only poor flies.

For a couple of years now we have had a hornet nest at the top of the chimney. They are no inside the flue but in the space between the liner and the chimney itself. Quite occasionally one or two would enter the flue and make their way down into the woodburner to surprise mrs. H when she opens it up to clean the glass every morning. No reappearance so far this year so maybe are gone. Fingers crossed.