Nope, it’s only a narrow window for any fruits… they are so tempting to the buzzing insects 
I’m trying to get whole apples in to store but the hornets don’t like me taking my share!
It’s a daily battle… I go out as soon as there is a glimmer of light.
There’s a lot of fruit high up which is over-ripe… this makes an easy target for the still dozy insects when they do arrive…
I’m harvesting at my own level and as the figs are growing in clusters, I simply grab and twist… one after another.
If the fig is ripe it comes off easily… if it isn’t ready it stays put… so I don’t really have to even inspect each fruit… just as well in the half-light
the insects do gradually arrive, as the light strengthens.
with “breakfast” available to them up above, they don’t really bother me… the high-up fruit must smell glorious to them…
once I start to notice them buzzing too closely to my hands… I’m off and away… 
of course, apples are not quite the same… perhaps you could leave a bowl/plate of “breakfast” some distance away… to keep the frelons/wasps from where you are currently harvesting…???
Glad you are OK Jane.
aïe aïe aïe ! very painful, been stung and bitten out on the bike which is rare but as you say there are so many more wasps now we don’t get proper winters. Hope it’s less painfull and swollen now.
Thank you Andrew.
Our baker neighbour was out on his bike last year and got stungd on his face.
He cycled to the nearest pharmacy, but was still swollen and then was taken to Urgence, who kept him over night for observation as they were concerned that his airway would swell as well.
Perhaps we need PPE against the wasps?
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As we have a gite and I need to protect guests as best I can, sadly, I’ve taken the view to destroy wasp nests when I come across them early in the season. At least if I catch them early I feel I am killing only a few wasps. Though one could say I’m also killing all those unborn wasps - tough decision.
I think this year they are so exceptional that destroying the nests is the only thing to do.
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I got one in the leg just above the knee earlier this year and it also required a trip to A&E.
My husband who has never been stung or bitten was ‘stung’ three times in three days! While it was very painful the bite areas did not swell, maybe a warning nip? He found a rust hole in our garden gate in which the wasps have set up home.They go into attack mode if anybody approaches the gate!
We have had nests all over.
They make them in the wing mirrors of my car!
My left arm is compromised because they took thirteen glands unnecessarily during my mastectomy, so I probably reacted more than usual and the rings didn’t help.
They are vicious things.
Sorry you had to experience this. I am really pleased you are okay!
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Thanks. I am doing lymphatic drainage on my arm, which I normally never need and I think it is helping, along with the steroid.
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Why do you think it was not necessary?
They certainly do Jane. We opened a box file recently and found 6 perfect conical nests, only about 25cms in length.
Take care 
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Because it was two years before signal node testing.
My GP’s told me that I had an abscess, which I did, but it was caused by the tumour and the glands were swollen because they were fighting the abscess and were not cancerous.
We have had potter wasps making nests in my bookcase.
In which case, sadly, they needed to come out, “just reactive” or not, as an axillary clearance was the method for staging the axilla at the time.
Sorry to hear about your run-in with the wasp; hate the bloody things myself (but at least I have got the total phobia I used to have under control) - oddly I have only ever been stung once and that was by a bee.
We had wasps take up home in an old (and never used) bird box this year - but very close to the back door (probably why the birds never fancied it). After much debate we left it despite the proximity and they were never really any bother - in fact we had fewer wasps buzzing around than normal if we ate outside.
I suspect that they were a dolichovespula species rather than vespa as they were pretty docile, never flew into the house, and did not seem that interested in whatever we were eating. The nest was abandoned fairly early in the season but I think they got to the point they needed more space and were constrained by a non-expanding box.
You lot have jinxed me! After having not too bad a year I now have wasps everywhere near the terrace (no doubt from the fig trees which I’m not harvesting!).