Wasps

admin
, 15 September 2019
Wasps
Wasp © Derek Middleton

By Charlotte Owen

WildCall Officer

Think ‘wasp’ and you’ll immediately picture something black and yellow and annoying, buzzing around your picnic and ready to sting at any moment, but there is more to the much-maligned wasp than first meets the eye.

The common wasp Vespula vulgaris is just one of a staggering 9,000 different species of wasp that can be found here in the UK.  Only a handful would be instantly recognisable as wasps and they range in size from tiny parasitic species that are barely visible without a microscope to the impressively large Eurasian hornet, which can reach gargantuan proportions of up to 3 cm.  The typical black-and-yellow stripy wasps are the social wasps: they live in colonies, build architecturally impressive nests and have fascinating social lives.

Every wasp nest begins with a single queen.  She selects a nest site and begins construction so that she can rear her first brood of daughters.  These are the worker wasps and it’s their job to help their mother to expand the nest and raise more wasps.  Only the females have stingers and they use them to immobilise flies, aphids, caterpillars and other invertebrate prey.  When you tot up the activity of the country’s total social wasp population, they will take around 14 million kilograms of insect prey in the course of a single summer, which is a pretty impressive pest control service.  They don’t actually eat all this protein themselves, and in fact they are physically incapable of eating it because their guts are so constricted by their thin ‘wasp waists’.  Instead, they collect it to feed to the nest’s growing larvae, which in turn secrete a sugary liquid that is lapped up by the adult wasps.  This explains their sugar cravings, which intensify in late summer when the nests are empty, the larvae are gone and the wasps must find alternative food sources.  Despite their love of fizzy drinks they do visit flowers to sip on nectar and provide a valuable pollination service in the process.  They’re just as vital as their cousins the bees in this respect, so perhaps it’s time we started showing wasps some love as well.

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Comments

  • Margaret Morrison:

    yes very good! I posted my photo, you can use it if you like.

    16 Sep 2019 18:48:00

  • Mike Croker:

    Appreciate the good work that wasps do, but not too sure I want to share my house with them. Currently they seem to be nesting under the floorboards of our dining room, accessing via air bricks. Any way of deterring them, other than blocking the air bricks off (there 8 air bricks in total…)?

    It is too late to deter now they’ve got going, and blocking the air bricks will just trap them inside (and is probably not a good idea for your house anyway). Unless the wasps are getting inside the dining room they won’t cause any particular problems but you may wish to consult a reputable pest control company for advice.

    29 Jun 2020 18:21:00

  • Brian Ingram:

    I have just noticed a small wasp nest in my shed. About the size of a ping pong ball. I can’t decide whether to destroy it or not. I’m happy to leave it but do you think it could become a problem when they get more active later on in the summer?

    11 May 2023 11:07:00

  • Sussex Wildlife Trust:

    In many cases it is fine to leave it, but in this case I think it depends on how often you use your shed, and how much disturbance you are likely to cause when using it. If the nest is near to the door for instance, this could cause some problems.

    For the majority of the time, the wasps will not bother you, mainly spending their time hunting other insects to feed to the larvae. For there to be a nest in the shed, there is likely to be a hole for them to leave through near to the nest, so if you leave the shed door closed, they will probably use that as their main exit/entrance. The nest will die off in late summer/early autumn, which is when they appear to be more active, as they no longer need to hunt, and actively look for sugary food sources. This is why they are notorious for gate-crashing picnics and barbeques!

    At the stage you have described, it is very early on in the building process. During this time, it is possible to dislodge the nest (using a stick or something similar), which will hopefully discourage the queen from continuing. Later on in the process, when there are workers defending the nest, it is obviously much more difficult and dangerous to do so.

    It is up to your discretion whether or not you remove the nest, but if you want any further advice, Humane Wildlife Solutions are a good contact to have - https://humanewildlifesolutions.co.uk/contact

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