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Posted: 18-11-2008 20:44 Post subject: Wasps

I was going to add this to the Bees thread, but thought better of it. It's along similar lines, though: where are the wasps? I haven't seen any this year and we usually get quite a few, so what happened to them?

Granted, they are the scariest animal in Britain and I don't really miss them, but they must have purpose, so could their mysterious disappearance have an effect on the environment like the missing bees will?

Posted: 18-11-2008 21:41 Post subject:

There was a huuuuuge wasp in my bathroom yesterday!

I mean enormous...about 2 inches long!

I ushered it outside and it buzzed off into the Sussex skies....

Posted: 18-11-2008 23:00 Post subject:

Are you sure it wasn't a hornet? They can get pretty big.

Posted: 19-11-2008 04:41 Post subject:

They're at my house.

No kidding. A bunch of them built a nest in the air vents and now whenever I go outside I get dive-bombed Mad

Now that you mention it though, apart from my houseguests I haven't seen any others in a few years. Especially the little European wasps. We used to have them all around our house when I was little. Never see them anymore.

The extinction begins Shocked

Posted: 19-11-2008 12:13 Post subject:

Wasps are major pollinators of plants, including our food plants. Without them (and bees) we would have serious food shortages so it could be time to worry. Sad

Posted: 19-11-2008 12:34 Post subject:

I've also noticed the wasp shortage this year (quite a relief, what with having been stung in the neck by one the previous summer). However, I don't think there's reason to worry on the strength of one season alone; as far as I understand it's quite normal for any animal population to ebb and swell. Balance is not something stationary, but more like the swing of a pendulum.

We've had record numbers of birds in my garden this year, so I wonder whether there's a connection.

Posted: 19-11-2008 13:00 Post subject:

There's not many wasps around this year because of the cold wet spring we had. Don't worry though, they'll be back next year!

As for the bees........I fear that's something far more serious!

Posted: 19-11-2008 13:37 Post subject:

Wasps're great. I had a wasps' nest in the eaves of the house a few years ago and I wouldn't have dreamed of destroying it.

When I sat out in the sun I could often hear the wasps on the fence, scraping off tiny shards of wood to enlarge the nest with. Hardworking little dears. Smile

Anyway, one stung the ex years ago. Anyone who does that is a friend of mine. yeay

Posted: 19-11-2008 17:23 Post subject:

A few years back, a tribe of leaf-cutting wasps made some alarming inroads into my Virginia Creeper. Catching them at it, ferrying the large portions of leaf back to their nest was quite entertaining.

I used to keep an aerosol of pyrethrin-based spray in the house. It is slow to bring down bluebottles but wasps seemed to drop directly it hit them - as I discovered to my cost when one dropped from the ceiling straight down my shirt-sleeve, delivering a fierce sting to the tenderest part of my arm as a valiant last act. Oddly, I have witnessed wasps that looked to have expired on a draining-board begin to revive after some hours.

I've seen very few in recent years and suspect it may well be a sign of ecological changes as suggested. So probably not such a good thing after all. Sad

Posted: 19-11-2008 19:13 Post subject:

I find wasps very resilient, which makes their disappearance all the more strange. When I try to whack a stripey invader, usually the blow simply stuns them, but it does give me the opportunity to escort them from the premises on a newspaper.

Anyway, I heard that if you do succeed in squashing one, its, erm, goo will exude a chemical that attracts more wasps who rush to its defence. Dunno if that's true, though.

Posted: 20-11-2008 21:03 Post subject:

there's gotta be a sting in this tale somewhere Wink

Posted: 20-11-2008 22:04 Post subject:

Posted: 20-11-2008 22:31 Post subject:

Posted: 21-11-2008 03:08 Post subject:

I haven't noticed a shortage. A few weeks ago one stung me in bed. I wasn't very happy but the poor thing seemed almost inebriated - perhaps thrown out of the nest and drowning its sorrows on fermented fruit?

Wasps do seem to make a bee-line (wasp-line?) to sting me - has any research been done on what attracts them to certain individuals?

Posted: 22-11-2008 11:11 Post subject:

With wasps, it is likely just the lousy weather that took a toll on them. You always see more if we have dry mild autumns and winters (the buggers survive the winter and get bigger!). Bad weather at the start of this year probably affected them in the hives.

I say probably, because we can see the effect Colony Collapse Disorder is having on bees, because we keep bees. I don't know anybody keeping wasps, so it is possible that something similar is happening to them, and we just haven't seen it yet!

Wasps, as with bees, are pollinators. Their loss would have an impact, but not as great an impact as has been made out - the majority of our staple foods are wind pollinated, not insect pollinated. Fruit however will have lower yields without bees and wasps, as will flowers. And the knock on effects to anything in the food chain relying on high numbers of wasps, bees etc is worth looking into. I imagine lower yields of fruit and flowers means other pollinators will have a tougher time finding food, meaning their numbers will go down. Anything predating on them will have a tougher time, and so on up the food chain.

We live in interesting times.