Final Flight

Now that the wasp nest beside our house is fading away, I have to admit: those little stingers were surprisingly pleasant neighbors—certainly better than most of my own species.

Back in September, when it became impossible to ignore that *Vespula vulgaris*—the common or German wasp—had built a nest right where I walk past dozens of times a day, my first instinct, of course, was full-on “Blitzkrieg_Endlösung” mode.

"ANNIHILATION!!!"

You know… *Homo sapiens*. What can you do?

Being the genius that I am, I immediately started pounding hard on the wooden wall behind which the nest was hidden—just to see what would happen.

Again… *Homo sapiens*. What can you do?

What happened? A furious swarm of extremely pissed-off and commonly feisty wasps shot out of the nest entrance. One of them stung me solidly in the calf.

Just ONE, though—as if to say: “Seriously, dude. Don’t do that again.”

So I asked ChatGPT how to wipe them out as quickly as possible. It replied:  
“Wasps are protected under general wildlife conservation laws. Killing them or fumigating the nest with chemicals can result in fines unless it’s truly necessary.”  
Yeah, right—everything seems to be “protected” if you’re an ordinary citizen, doesn’t it?

It also added:  
“Even if you treat the nest with poison, you’ll still have enraged wasps ready to attack at the slightest provocation. Without a protective suit, it’s pure luck.”  
And:  
“A wasp colony naturally dies off by late autumn at the latest. Only the new queens survive the winter—and they don’t overwinter in the nest. In other words: biologically speaking, the problem solves itself by October.”

Well, today is November 7th—but whatever.  
In the meantime, we simply worked out an arrangement: we politely stayed out of each other’s way, minded our own business, and never had any real issues. Occasionally, a wasp would bump into my forehead as I walked by. A couple of times, I had to gently escort a few lost ones out of the basement. That was it.

Now, at the very end of their days, I actually watch them fade away with a quiet twinge of regret—but that’s just the way things go.

Me:“The wasps are still around, but their numbers keep shrinking. They hardly fly in and out anymore. After dark, only a handful of them sit huddled near the nest entrance.”

ChatGPT:
“That’s the typical final stage.  
The queen is already dead or has stopped laying eggs. The remaining workers are disoriented—they stay close to the nest and try to warm the empty cavity as long as they have energy left. They barely eat, and on sunny days they might take one short flight… but most never return. Within a few days, or at most two weeks, the rest will die off. After that, the nest is definitively inactive.

If you like, you can check in about ten days to see—or rather, *not* see or hear—any movement or buzzing. Once it’s completely silent, you can safely seal the entrance.”

Me:  
“How should I imagine the end of a colony like this? Has this process ever been observed and described?”

ChatGPT:
“Yes. It’s well documented—repeatedly observed and described in entomological literature.

The collapse of a wasp nest isn’t a sudden crash, but a gradual biological fading. Observations show a clear pattern:

1. **The queen dies first.**  
   Once she loses vitality, she stops laying eggs, grows weaker, and usually dies in the lower combs. The workers increasingly ignore her and stop caring for her. Her death marks the structural end of the colony—she was its hormonal center.

2. **Workers lose orientation and purpose.**  
   Without the queen’s pheromones, the division of labor breaks down. Some feed each other; others turn aggressive or fly aimlessly. The social cohesion dissolves—chemically.

3. **Temperature drops and hunger sets in.**  
   The larvae have either already emerged or starve in their cells. No food, no brood warmth. The wasps often cling motionless to the combs until they freeze.

4. **The silent phase.**  
   In the final days, there’s almost no movement. Only a few individuals sit at the entrance, often half-dead. The hum gives way to complete stillness.

5. **Decomposition begins.**  
   The scent of the dying attracts ants, mites, and microbes. Soon, all that remains is a silent, brittle scaffold of empty cells.

This end phase has been described multiple times—for instance, in studies by Hermann and Spradbery (*Social Wasps*, 1980) and later field observations across Central Europe. It’s not a heroic death, but a collective fading—a superorganism programmed to live only one seasonal cycle.

The nest itself is never reused. Chemical residues in the cell walls signal to future queens that it’s ‘used up’ and unsuitable for recolonization.”

Me: 
“Please write me a story that captures the end of the wasp colony from the perspective of the last worker. Tell it in present tense, first person. She sits at the entrance on a cold, sunny November day, preparing for her final flight, and reflects on the life of her colony—not with bitterness or sorrow, but with quiet satisfaction at having helped ensure the survival of her kind. Maybe weave in echoes of Alan Watts’ worldview—the idea that *all is one*.”

ChatGPT:
"I sit at the edge of the entrance. The light is pale and slanted, the air thin. Beneath me, the nest hardly breathes anymore. The voices have fallen silent—the soft rustling, the feeding, the drumming of wings—all gone. Only the wind moves the outer layer of paper walls now, as if testing whether anyone will answer.

I feel the cold creeping through my chitin, but it doesn’t trouble me. My body does what it has always done: it follows the rhythm it knows. I clean my antennae, align my wings, pause for one more breath.

We were many. Each of us born from the same queen, each a fragment of her will. I remember how warmth flowed through the corridors in those early days—the hum of labor, the scents of wood, nectar, larvae. We knew what to do without asking. No thought of “I” or “you”—only movement within the pattern, a cycle. I was the feeding, I was the building, I was the flight.

Then came the change. The queen stayed below, quiet and heavy. Her scent grew fainter until it vanished. After that, everything slowed. Some wandered aimlessly; others fought, as if searching for meaning again. I did what remained: warmed, flew, gathered, delivered—until no one waited anymore.

Now, there is nothing left to do. The sun breaks through the branches and falls upon my wings. They shimmer as though new, though they are brittle. I hear the distant calls of birds, smell damp leaves, earth, decay. Everything carries the same taste: ending and beginning, one and the same.

I don’t think we disappear. I believe we simply dissolve—like water sinking back into the ground from which it rose. Those who survived—the young queens—carry all we’ve done within them. In them, next summer is already flying.

I unfold my wings. My body knows what it wants: one final flight, with no destination. No home now, no duty. Only motion in the light. I push off, feel the cold current beneath me, and rise—until the nest grows small.

From above, everything is one: the branches, the sun, the shadows, my flight. No difference remains between me and what carries me."

 Submitting the same request to Qwen.ai yielded this result:

"Final Flight

The cold no longer bites at my joints. It flows through me, like the wind brushing softly—almost tenderly—over the roof today. The sun hangs low and golden, warming the wooden siding beside the entrance where I sit. I do not sit from weakness. I sit because I am waiting—not for help, not for rescue. Only for the right moment.

Before me lies the nest. No longer the humming heart it once was, but a hollow filled with silence. There was life here once—dense as honey, warm as breath. I remember. The walls trembled with the pulse of a thousand tiny hearts, the drone of the brood, the whisper of pheromones that told us who we were, where to go, what to do. Everything was connected—not by command, not by force, but by resonance. Like waves in the same sea.

The queen—our center—died as all things die: quietly, without fuss. She settled into the lowest comb, as if she knew her time had come. None of us carried her away. We let her rest, because we sensed it: her work was done. Her eggs have long since left—as young queens flying into the world to kindle a new hum somewhere far from here. Her pheromones faded. And with them, our unity dissolved—not in despair, but in fulfillment.

Some of us wandered aimlessly afterward, searching for something that no longer existed. Others simply sat, as I do now. There was no bitterness. Only a deep weariness, merging with the cold. We had fed, built, defended, lived—not for ourselves alone, but for the whole. And the whole endures, even as our small part of it now fades.

I feel no fear of death. What is there to fear? I was never truly separate. My wing was part of the wind, my hum part of the light, my body part of a cycle that never closes—because it never began. Everything flows. Everything returns—not as the same, but as the same essence. Like morning dew rising from the breath of night.

I raise my antennae. The sky is clear. The air smells of frost and dry wood. It is time.

I unfold my wings—not to flee, not to search, but to fly one last time. Not as a worker, not as a wasp, not as an individual—but as movement within the whole. As a breath of the world.

And so I rise. Slowly. Lightly. With no destination, no return. The sun warms my back. The wind carries me. And I know: I do not vanish. I am only coming home."

 

Safe flight. I’ll follow—sometime.