BOY STUNG BY WASPS

Press, Volume C, Issue 29444, 21 February 1961, Page 8

BOY STUNG BY WASPS

Disturbed Nest

While Playing

An 11-year-old boy. Allan Henry, of 2 Centennial avenue. Riccarton. was badlv s'ung bv wasps after disturbing a wasps’ nest while playing jr a property on the banks of the Avon river in Riccarton, adjoining University of Canterbury land, early on Sunday afternoon. The boy. who was stung on the back, chest, arms, hands, and legs, was very distressed, and was noticed crying in pain on the side of Clyde road after the incident by a passing motorist, Mrs H. C. Stevens, of 43 Clyde road, who drove the boy to his home. He was taken by his parents to a doctor, and after treatment had recovered sufficiently to attend school yesterday. The boy, with his twin brother, and three other boys, was playing in an overgrown property on the banks of the Avon when he stumbled on the wasps’ nest and disturbed the wasps inside. He suffered the main brunt of the wasps' stings, although one or two of the other boys were also stung a little. Wasps appear to have increased in the Christchurch area of late, and workmen of the Waimairi County Council had been called in to properties to destroy about a dozen wasps’ nests in the last 12 months, said the County Clerk (Mr K. McLachlan) yesterday. However, the council had no right to enter private properties to destroy wasps’ nests unless asked to do so, Mr McLachlan said. This had been discovered by approaches to the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Internal Affairs.