Chives’ Guide to Wasp Keeping in Immortalis and Other Domestic Nightmares

A gentleman’s household is no place for the faint of heart, least of all when the pantry hums with the industrious malice of the common wasp. In the shadowed halls of Immortalis, where the silverware whispers secrets and the chandeliers drip with more than candle-wax, one learns to regard these striped harbingers not as vermin, but as valued, if treacherous, companions. I, Chives, have tended to their nests for years, dodging the occasional assassination attempt from the more ambitious queens. Allow me to impart the wisdom accrued from a lifetime of swollen knuckles and near-fatal allergies among the junior staff.

Selecting Your Wasp Colony

Begin with the paper nest, that papery fortress suspended like a judge’s wig from the rafters of the scullery. Avoid the solitary sorts, those lone wanderers who flit about the jam-pot with suicidal intent; they lack the communal spite that makes true wasp-keeping worthwhile. In Immortalis, we favour the Vespula vulgaris, robust fellows with a grudge against humanity baked into their very venom. Procure your founding queen in early spring, when she emerges from hibernation looking for all the world like a disgruntled governess. Lure her with a saucer of overripe plums, laced with just a hint of the master’s after-dinner brandy. She will claim your offered cavity, be it a hollow beam or the abandoned skull of last season’s poacher, and set about her empire-building with commendable efficiency.

Housing and Hive Management

The nest must be afforded privacy, yet accessibility for inspections. Suspend it from the pantry ceiling via a length of piano-wire, ensuring it sways gently in the draughts from the east wing. Ventilation is key: wasps abhor stagnation, much like the dowager aunt who visits unannounced. Prune the comb weekly with silver shears, lest it expand into the cold larder and claim the Stilton as its own. Should the colony grow fractious, introduce a rival nest fragment from the greenhouse; nothing unites wasps like a good territorial skirmish. In Immortalis, we have lost three footmen to such diversions, but the resulting harmony is worth the funeral expenses.

Feeding Regimes

Wasps are carnivores at heart, despising the vegetarian pretensions of bees. Supply them with drowned flies, retrieved from the spider-webs in the library, or the occasional spider itself, should it have grown presumptuous. Aphid paste, harvested from the rose-bushes under the master’s window, serves as a delicacy. Water them with droplets from the leaky roof, infused with the blood of a pricked thumb, for they thrive on the essence of their keepers. Overfeeding leads to lethargy and poor stinging posture; underfeeding invites raids on the nursery, where the young master’s tantrums provide unwitting provender.

Handling and Training

Approach with bare hands only after dark, when their aggression wanes under the moon’s indifferent gaze. Speak to them in low tones, reciting the family litany of curses passed down from the first Lord Immortalis. They respond to authority, curling their abdomens in salute rather than assault. For training, expose drones to the scent of intruders: a gentleman’s cologne or the perfume of a rival housekeeper. They will patrol the thresholds with zeal, ejecting trespassers through the keyholes. Caution: never swat. A swatted wasp is a martyr, summoning the swarm in vengeful chorus.

Stings, Swellings, and Domestic Repercussions

Inevitably, the sting arrives, that exquisite fire blooming beneath the skin. Treat with a poultice of dock-leaf and regret, applied whilst standing stock-still lest the colony interpret movement as mockery. Antihistamines are for the weak; true wasp-keepers endure, swelling into grotesque parodies of themselves as a badge of honour. In Immortalis, a proper welt across the brow signals competence to the staff, eliciting nods of respect from the cook and wary glances from the maids. Should anaphylaxis threaten, administer the master’s private elixir, decanted from the cellar vials marked ‘For Emergencies Only’.

Winter Preparations and Legacy

As autumn fades, the workers perish in a frenzy of gluttony, leaving the fertilised queens to burrow into the wainscoting. Seal them with wax from the altar-candles, preserving their malice for the thaw. Come spring, they emerge renewed, ready to perpetuate the cycle. Thus does the Immortalis household persist, a symphony of buzz and bite, where man and wasp maintain an uneasy truce amid the domestic nightmares that bind us all.

Should you master these arts, your home shall hum with purpose, a fortress against boredom and the uninvited guest. Fail, and the wasps shall claim the lease, evicting you to the garden-shed with the other failures.

Immortalis Book One August 2026