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Wonderful wasps

German was by Wendy Carter

Discover why there's more to these black and yellow picnic pests than meets the eye...

They've got themselves a bit of a reputation and, although they might not be all furry and cuddly like their bee relatives, our social wasps deserve your love.

There are a rather astonishing 7000 species of wasp in the UK but most of us really only notice the big black and yellow ones that pester our picnics from mid-August onwards. Almost all of these other wasps are solitary and that means that the females look out for their own young. There's more than enough information to write about these in another blog so, for now, let's concentrate on the ones that we come into contact with most often.

If you're not keen on wasps, you're probably even less keen on flies that wander through an open window and seem unable to find their way out. If so, wasps have just become your best friends. As well as being important pollinators, wasps are top predators and it's estimated that social wasps (the big black and yellow ones) catch an estimated 14 million kilogrammes of insects each year. Not only that, you only have to watch them construct a nest to know that they're incredible engineers and it's even thought that understanding more about the chemicals in their stings could help medical science. 

If they're so great, why do they have such a poor reputation? There are nine species of social wasp in the UK and it’s their social nature and lifecycle that bring them into conflict with us from late summer and into autumn. 

Just like bumblebee colonies, social wasps are ruled by a queen whose purpose is to found a colony and then lay eggs to continue it. Her brood of female workers continue her working of constructing the nest and hunting for food to raise the young. 

Have you ever looked at your shed or a bench in the local park and wondered why it looks, well, stripy? If the stripes look fresh, hang around and you might be lucky enough to see a wasp return and start to rasp at the wood - they mix these tiny wood shavings with saliva to produce a paste that is used to make the nest.  Essentially, they're engineering their incredible architecture using papier mache!

Worker wasps hunt insects to feed to the growing larvae back at the nest. Often, they capture insects that we might consider to be 'pests' - flies, weevils, caterpillars etc. I was once about to photograph a horsefly (they have amazing eyes if you're brave enough to take a look) as a wasp flew in and deftly bit off its abdomen before flying back to the nest with the remains! You may have heard of the fashion term 'wasp-waist', which refers to a particular kind of corset that produced a very small waist? It should be no surprise that this is a term borrowed from the natural world - if you're ever close enough to get a good look, you'll see that wasps have incredibly thin waists. So thin, in fact, that adult wasps can't eat solid food - they live off nectar (hence their pollination of flowers) and sweet droplets that are produced by their larvae.

Eventually, queens produce new queens (they hibernate and set up colonies the following year) and males. This prompts the winding down of a nest and, when there are fewer larvae producing their sweet juicy liquid, adult wasps go on the hunt for other sources of sugar - our foods and fizzy drinks are perfect alternatives! 

Close up of the face of a black and yellow wasp eating a rotting kiwi fruit by Wendy Carter

German wasp eating rotting kiwi by Wendy Carter

Sharing our food with something that's buzzing around our hands and head can make us uncomfortable, especially when we think we might get stung. In order to attract wasps away from you and your food, consider placing fruit (if it's going over a little, this is even better) somewhere nearby - perhaps the other end of your picnic bench or a couple of metres away. You might not have realised that you've got a nest on your property until it starts to break down (any time from now) but once the process begins, you're just a matter of weeks away from the wasps disappearing altogether - putting some fruit away from your doors and windows should help to keep the wasps away from your house.

It's important to remember that only female wasps (the workers) are able to sting and they'll only do so if they feel that you're a threat so to minimise the chance of being stung, try to relax and remain calm.

If you don't believe me (or you want to find out a little more about solitary wasps), take a look at this short video from my colleague Ben...

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