The Perils of Picking Over-ripe Plums

I learned the hard way that seemingly perfect ripe plums can be hollow on the side that you can't see when you reach up to pick them, and likely as not contain a feeding wasp, so these days I always wear gardening gloves when I pick them.

This is probably what wasps dream about, when the hard work of raising a brood is over ......

....... spending their dotage chewing their way through a sweet, juicy plum. I piled some on our bird table and after the last couple of days of warm weather they've begun to ferment, so the wasps are becoming woozy on alcohol and are very approachable. Sometimes they are so inebriated that they fall over on their backs if you give them a gentle shove; reminds me of my student days.

They  need to take frequent feeding breaks to clean sticky juice off their legs ....

.... and faces.

There are some pictures of some rather different inebriated insects on rotting plums here.