A bit OT but I've seen quite a few threads here about them here...
I found four large, very dozy wasps in the bathroom yesterday. Bathroom is currently open to the attic space because of some ongoing d-i-y on the ceiling, so I'm sure they must have come from there. We've had several nests up there over recent years.
But I thought only queens hibernated; is it really likely I've just copped for four of the damned things at once? I don't know how much bigger they are than normal wasps, but mine seemed on the large side of 'standard'. If they were indeed queens, presumably the problem is now over?
Before I get the ladders and torch out, can anyone shed any light on this for me?
Apart from the ones that you haven't found yet ! I think the answer is yes, it is queens that are now waking up and seeking out nest sites. I've disposed of about 4 indoors already - they seem particularly adept at finding their way in through barely open windows and ventilation holes. Perhaps such things are interpreted as possible nest openings ?
I'd have a look up in the loft. You won't be in great danger as they are still very dozy and quite probably all the queens have left anyway. (Although to be honest I don't know how many you might get in one nest. Last year's queen and all worker wasps will be dead, and this years' are a result of late matings producing the only fertile females.)
They are irrelevant. Queen wasps will seek out any habitat which is suitable to build a nest. They're unlikely to start building in your bathroom - it's too light.
They're not 'dozy', they're either seeking suitable sites to build a new nest or are lost, having blundered into a space which might have looked like a suitable space from outside.
Yes they do - and only the new queens which were bred late last year.
Poor things. They were damned but not in the way you mean ...
It depends what you mean by 'normal'. The first worker wasps to emerge and have been well fed are bigger than the ones at high season which don't get the same supplies as earlier ones. Queen wasps, which you won't see for much longer because they'll be busy in the nest, laying eggs, and not venturing outside, are perhaps half as big again as workers. To the educated eye such as mine they are a different shape too.
No, for every hundred or more of queens which survive the winter only one will survive 'intervention' to found new nests. Intervention includes not finding suitable habitats, poisonous sprays, animal predation (birds, mammals (including Man), disease, weaknesses and accident. But since many queens survive the winter you have to kill (if you must) many more than four to ensure that none will build in your property.
I hope I have done. But wasps are not really a problem ... you won't believe me but I'm happy to explain more.
We've got loads of nice big fat queen wasps blundering around at the moment, looking for somewhere nice to nest - I can't remember seeing so many. We had a nest behind the facia on the flat roof of the lounge last year, but I've filled up the cracks so they don't choose that this year as it's right by the patio doors. No doubt they'll find somewhere else, but as long as it's somewhere a bit more out of the way, and they stay out of the house itself, I'll leave 'em alone.
A couple of years ago our youngest (then a bit under 3) laid his hand on a 'dozy' wasp on the floor of the upstairs landing (whence it had arrived from a nest in the attic via an opening where 'dozy' dad had installed a loft ladder but not yet fitted a new trapdoor :-). That wasp _was_ a problem for him, and vicariously for the rest of us.
I'm not sure I'll agree with you but I'm listening ...
Of course it was. but wasps only sting as a reaction to a threat. To the wasp the child's hand was a threat to its integrity. If something threatened you you'd defend yourself, wouldn't you?
You have to think about wasps - and other creatures - as beings in their own right and part of the larger natural order. Humans are more dangerous to wasps than wasps are to humans.
I'm talking about social wasps here by the way, which are a very small proportion of the world's wasp community.
I've been stung by wasps and I sometimes react very badly to wasps stings, I have a general reaction - an anaphylactic response - but I'm not frightened by wasps. There are millions of them flying about in summer, how many people are stung by them? Those who are have been perceived by the insect as a threat, they are defending themselves, wasps don't sting 'for badness'.
Man, in my opinion, is the only creature which attacks for no good reason.
I've also been bitten by dogs (not as a defence by the way) but I'm not frightened by dogs. I've been damaged in a car accident but I still drive.
We must be rational about these things. And please don't say that a three year old can't understand about these things, of course he can't. But he can learn from others' attitudes.
He can't learn about the dangers of road transport either - but I bet he's had quite a few car journeys, each of which is a potential danger.
If you have any specific questions I'd be very pleased to discuss them, using facts and not misconceptions.
They need a very sheltered place to nest. Remember that their nest is paper and vulnerable to weather. One type of wasp excavates holes in the ground to nest - would you like that?
Impossible - it stands for White Anglo Saxon Protestant. If they were from Europe, they would be BEES - Bloody Eastern European Sh... This is a joke by the way. John In limine sapientiae
Well said! This ridiculous obsession man has with killing or destroying absolutely everything around him bugs me[1] no end, especially the poor old insects.
In a similar vein, we had the luck to see a water vole in the garden t'other week and I can imagine this creature gets a very hard time due to his passing resemblance to a brown rat.
I know where you are coming from (having followed your beekeeping posts), but am still struggling to get my head around the idea that a function of my house is to provide additional accommodation for unwanted guests ;-)
Presumably wasps managed just fine before we erected nice cosy brick huts for them, at a guess by nesting in tree trunks ? There are plenty of trees in my garden...
Your house is absolutely full of wht you'd call unwanted guests if you knew about them :-)
Come to that - so is your body, even your skin, no matter how clean you think you are :-)))
Any suitably sheltered place will do. They often build nests in bird boxes and garden sheds and wooden boxes - Man is responsible for their loss of natural habitat as he is for the same for many species.
Birds and bumble bees are two obvious types of animal whose numbers are diminishing because of this.
With hollow trunks?
Believe me, I understand people's fear of wasps. I'd like to think that I can persuade people to take a more sympathetic attitude to the richness of the natural world - while we still have it - and by understanding more to lose their fear. I know that I can do that when I'm face to face with people, on usenet it's more difficult.
Yes, yes, but no-one in my house freaks out at the sight of the odd fly, spider or dust mite. (Wasps don't freak me out either, but I have other people to think about.)
Cor blimey, they are picky. If the alternative in house-free areas (or times) is only hollow tree trunks, then they must have been struggling. So we must be providing absolutely loads of free, suitable accommodation now. I'm not going to worry about trying to exclude my property from the millions of others that are available.
Over the years we've had many wasp nests, mostly in the attic. I could leave them alone if they left me alone, but if one nest happens to be close to a window, then that window can't be opened or the place fills up (and by filling up I mean several wasps a day getting in and not going out again). A friend also suffered an infestation in his house when they managed to chew their way through some plasterwork from his loft (where the nest was) into his bedroom, and apparently most of the colony then headed that way. At times like that, the diversity of mother nature takes second place to self preservation !
Fwiw, I've never been stung by a bee or a wasp of any kind. A hornet did get me once - vicious nasty little b*****d. The most seemingly aggressive of common pests are wasps. I've yet to be bothered by any kind of bee, and I did once live nearby someone who had a couple of hives and saw many of them in the garden. I'm still unconvinced wasps aren't the Millwall FC hooligan end of the insect kingdom, and the fact that there are so many of them making trouble and spoiling for a fight at the end of the summer might suggest their numbers aren't in terminal decline.
LOL! That's what everyone says, "I'm not worried but I have grandchildren, dogs, babies, neighbours' children come, there's my old auntie ... " There are so many big brave people in the world who say they aren't freaked out by wasps. Oddly enough, the grandchildren, dogs, babies, neighbours' children and old aunties never complain ...
I went for a pre-surgical assessment yesterday and the nurse asked me about the bees in her lawn. She too was worried for her children (who had never been stung by the bees and never will be). When I told her the natural history of the bees she, being an intelligent woman, promised that she wouldn't even think of getting rid of them. I've told her to come round and duff me up if anything I told her proved to be wrong.
No, as I've said repeatedly, any suitably sheltered place will do. You're the one who said there were plenty of trees in your garden, I was merely pointing out that trees per se don't always afford a suitably sheltered habitat.
No, read what I said.
You can't exclude your property. They are extremely intelligent creatures and know what they're looking for. It's not a house, it's a suitably sheltered habitat. If a house satisfies their needs so be it. Man himself has cleared away natural habitats to build his own unnecessarily complicated dwellings and in doing so provide suitable habitats for other creatures.
A very suitable place.
Several? Good Heavens! But why can't you open a window? The wasps don't paint it shut, surely? No - that's a Man thing ...
I don't believe that. They don't chew plasterwork. The plasterwork was probably already damaged and hadn't been noticed. Of course, if your friend had watched closely enough to see wasps chewing the plasterwork I'll eat my words. But if he was confident enough to get close enough to see that happening he was obviously sensible enough not to be worried by the wasps.
Apparently.
Most of the colony. Hmm.
Did your friend die then?
er - so what's your problem with wasps?
As a matter of fact hornets are less likely to sting than wasps (same family though). I don't know why that is. And they are quite rare in this country and I've never heard of them building in houses. That only means that I've never heard of it, not that they never have
Ah! You're learning - 'seemingly' is the crunch word.
You're very unlikely to be unless you're a beekeeper. Bees (and wasps come to that) are more likely to defend their home and the next generation from an invasion of their nest - by a beekeeper for instance. Wouldn't you defend yourself from a gigantic who removed the cover of your house and might threaten your children?
Along with the wasps. They have more important things to do than harass you. You, apparently, haven't more important things to do than to harass the wasps :-)
There's no point in my saying any more that they're not making trouble and spoiling for a fight. They're not football hooligans - those are men.
Yes, I'd like to think that you might consider my words but I doubt that you will. However, there are others who might be reading this who perhaps might.
And it's very interesting that someone who's never been stung by a wasp is so aggressive towards them :-)))))))))
Point out where I have indicated I am "so" aggressive, please ? Or is this one of those "I am a man, therefore I am responsible for everything nasty in the world" things... Just because I don't lay out the red carpet for every yellow-and-black buzzy thing doesn't make me an exterminator.
Gooseberry sawfly is the bane of my garden. They strip the leaves off the bush but I still get a sufficient and perfectly formed crop of fruit. I've tried feeding the catterpillars to my hens but they turn up their beaks at them.
And although they're not insects I don't warm to slugs ... I reckon that I still get the lion's share of my crops though. They're not worth worrying about.
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