wasps !

Greetings from sunny Spain, average temps running at 35/37 C in the shade!
just been to watch the hive entrances , there were about five or six wasps making a nuisance of themselves trying to gain access but the guard bees were on top of their job and none were seen entering,
last year the wasps left it until September before they tried to gain access,
with the temps being so high there is very little for our bees to forage on, which will likely be the reason for both of the queens to take time out from laying,
thank goodness for the diary which I have been keeping, not quite as many scary moments this year!
none of the forage plants have flowered at the same time as last year except for the ever reliable Aptenia,
If I had known how absorbing beekeeping is I would have started many moons ago,
adios.

Seems to be a lot of wasps about and seems a bit earlier than usual.

My single colony has been very weak this year and yesterday I found it completely robbed out with about thirty wasps inside.

Fortunately the bees had moved next door to my bait hive. Still very weak.

Bloody wasps.

I know Dolichovespula sylvestris nests have matured, my friend keeps one in his garden and I found a queen roosting for the night here in Manchester.

kazmcc said:

I know Dolichovespula sylvestris nests have matured, my friend keeps one in his garden and I found a queen roosting for the night here in Manchester.

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Is there a red one that size?

Cussword said:

Is there a red one that size?

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Not that I know of, unless you are referring to Man Utd wasps, then of course, every wasp is a red

Why do you ask?

I was inspecting on Friday, & I was certain I saw something like that out of the corner of my eye.

Cussword said:

I was inspecting on Friday, & I was certain I saw something like that out of the corner of my eye.

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Had a quick look on the BWARS site and found this "Queen median wasps are sometimes mistaken for hornets (Vespa crabro) due to sharing some red coloration" but I am not familiar with median wasps yet. I wonder if that is what you saw?

kazmcc said:

Had a quick look on the BWARS site and found this "Queen median wasps are sometimes mistaken for hornets (Vespa crabro) due to sharing some red coloration" but I am not familiar with median wasps yet. I wonder if that is what you saw?

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Frequently mistaken in my experience. Also responsible for giving median wasps a bad rep whereas they are no worse than vulgaris or germanica - just that they prefer to nest in shrubs at about face height so when a nest full of queens is accidentally chopped through with a hedge trimmer by an unsuspecting Gardner it's quite a shock.

Thanks Karol. I'm told different wasps have different sized defensive ranges around their nests? Is that correct?

Hmmm! There's probably some truth in that but I suspect it has more to do with preferred nesting locations and the nature and frequency of disruption leading to a state of alert. Germanica and median wasps tend to have reputations for being the most aggressive of the commonly indigenous wasps. Germanica prefers to nest in the ground (not exclusively) and medians nests in shrubs (almost entirely exclusively) therefore they are more likely to be disturbed by human activity and more importantly they are more likely to detect human activity more quickly. So for example wearing a bee suit covered in alarm pheromone will empty a nest of its resident sentries as soon as the nest detects the pheromone which is influenced by wind direction. The nature of the substrate that Germanica has nested in will determine the extent of any vibration that they feel on approach and therefore will influence the response to the proximity of approach (together with wind direction). Because there are so many confounding environmental factors I think it's difficult to reach an absolute conclusion.

I have a friend who collects new wasp nests in spring and relocates them to his garden in bird boxes with the front panel removed, he's really into wasps, and he reckons he can get up quite close to Dolichovespula sylvestris or Dolichovespula norwegica nests to film them, but Vespula vulgaris or germanica, no chance. I can't remember which one he said, but it was one of those two he filmed. He tried to get me to coax the wasp pictured above onto my finger but I'm having none of it. I'm not quite ready for that yet lol

Here is a link to his flickr page if you are interested. I have his permission to share

https://www.flickr.com/photos/108825294@N02/sets/72157656332422162

kazmcc said:

Here is a link to his flickr page if you are interested. I have his permission to share

https://www.flickr.com/photos/108825294@N02/sets/72157656332422162

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Amazing photos Kaz, thanks for sharing.

Lucky Bee said:

Amazing photos Kaz, thanks for sharing.

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Amazing insects! This is who I go to if I need a wasp identifying, he knows his wasps

He has been showing me how a nest grows, from the very first bits the queen builds alone, right through to the end. They build those nests fast!

I too love wasps, not yet tried to remove them yet....

abm said:

I too love wasps, not yet tried to remove them yet....

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Great pics abm, were these nests that failed or did they go on to grow? Great pics of those first worker eggs

They were in fact on hols in Greece, on my balcony.

I removed to photograph.

(I SHOULD SAY I WAS ON HOLS.... NOT THE WASPS....) hehehehehe