‘I feel motherly towards them’: the nature reserve manager sharing her office with a wasp nest

The reserve manager for the Trinity Broads, part of the Norfolk Wildlife Trust, had discovered a wasp colony taking up residence in her office, a converted shipping container. Wasps building a nest in a Norfolk Wildlife Trust office on Trinity BroadsThe queen lays eggs continuously, while worker wasps forage and bring food back to feed the larvae. Rothney describes a low purring sound rising off the nest, which she believes comes from thousands of wings beating to keep the colony cool. View image in fullscreen Eilish Rothney working on the Broads: ‘All I want is for people to be more tolerant of wasps, and of nature generally.’ “I’m going to try to take it apart very carefully when they leave so I can see what it looks like inside.”