IF DOGS could talk I think we own a spaniel who would have a limited, but very expressive, vocabulary.

Moss is quite insistent that high standards of hygiene are maintained in the garden and yard. If she chooses to avail herself of the toilet facilities at home, she persists in informing you of exactly which spot she has chosen to perform and that she expects you to come quickly and get it cleared up.

This is in direct contrast to our terrier Millie, who has brought the art of incontinence to a high level of secretiveness. She sees it is an act of one upmanship (or updogship) if I don’t immediately spot the wet patch on a rug or squidgy mess under a table. Utterly incorrigible.

But enough of such base matters. We have a serious issue to deal with. Wasps attacking the bee hives and stealing honey to stock up their nests to feed the wasp larvae.

Apparently the wasps virtually overwhelm by numbers and by the tactic of engaging guard bees in defence with one wasp cohort, while another cohort just marches into the hive.

There not only will they steal the honey, but also dismember any bees they catch to take back to their own nest for the wasp grubs. Gruesome eh?

For this reason I am finding a strange new addition to the items in my freezer. Wasps. John has shrunk the entrance into the hives and fixed a screen under one hive that lures the wasps into a separate entrance with the aroma and promise of a feast of honey.

The bees themselves do not use this entrance. Then the wasps find that the tasty treats on offer are in a one way trap. And once the screens and their drawers are full, of wasps, they are placed in the freezer for a painless extermination procedure.

There has been a casualty/mishap, however. As my freezers are usually full to the brim, John decided to remove some of the contents while the wasps met their chilly, or rather chilled end.

To do this he had to take ‘stuff’ out. In this case, my ice cream stash. Now to be fair he did put the ice creams into a freezer bag, but to be less fair, he left the bag out in the sunshine. By the time the wasps were cryogenic corpses, my ice creams were more soups than solids.

Revenge is sweet, well slushy anyway, must have been the wasps last thoughts.