h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Wasps are unpleasant, dangerous creatures, but you have one great advantage over them. You can see them buzzing about in their stripey coats, to them you're like a vast lumbering office block: too big and slow-moving for them to actually notice.

If you attack them on their own ground, hitting them with a rolled-up newspaper for instance, they'll be too fast for you. But while compound eyes are good for noticing movement, they can't see glass and they won't notice your huge shape moving up. So if you catch a wasp resting, particularly against a window, cover it with a tumbler. Nudge it with the edge of the tumbler and it will walk around the insideside, puzzled. Slip a saucer under it and your wasp is both trapped and portable. According to taste you can take it out into the garden and release it, or put it in the freezer to die, or splash a little water and washing-up liquid into the saucer, which will also kill it (in time, when it wanders down for a drink). That way the wasp will be disarmed and eliminated without any risk to you.

Incidentally, wasps are thirsty creatures. I've even seen them drinking from underneath wet towels on a washing line. If you've got a bird bath, fish pond or water feature in your garden, you've got a pit-stop for the neighbourhood wasps – something worth thinking about when you fling yourself down next to it with a cup of tea and a jam doughnut after a hard day's work.