Wasp Factory

[perlmonger]

ramtops and I pootled down to Nailsea Folk Club on Friday night, to see Reg Meuross and Phil Beer. A very fine night it was, opened by Mike Scott whom neither of us had encountered before for all that he's been working the folk circuit for some 30 years: anyone who can sing a song about Brenda finding a floater of a morning must have something going for them. Reg and Phil worked well together; we've not seen them together before, in fact we've only seen Reg once, playing with Miranda Sykes at Trowbridge two years ago, but he writes a good song: deceptively simple and well crafted. Recommended.

We got home just before midnight, decided against a whisky and episode of B5 and headed for bed. In the bedroom we found a wasp: large, yellow, going "bzzzzt"; this is suboptimal, so by the careful manipulation of light switches, we persuaded it into the bathroom with door shut and window open. By the morning it was gone.

Saturday, we needed to do a bit of food shopping, so headed to North Street and did so finishing by indulging in a lunch at Café Ceiturica (which astonishingly still doesn't seem to have its own web site; perhaps we should pimp ourselves to them). Good food, served by friendly staff in an unpretentious environment, as always. Mac had a monstrous tower of split bagel, salad, burger and goats' cheese; I had Persian lamb curry with butternut squash, roast lime, prunes and lentils. Looking at the specials board, they were serving Barramundi cod accompanied by, amongst other things, aubergine caviar: I think I should suggest to ursulav that she paint eggplant rising up a stream to spawn.

After an afternoon and evening of B5, drop scones, tea and cake, we found the damned wasp back again, in the study this time. Enough. This time, as it finally headed into the bathroom (as opposed to buzzing against the glass pane above the door), ramtops helped it on its way with a few squirts from the cats' can of Acclaim. She found it lying on the floor with its legs in the air this morning, so it seems that flea spray works on wasps too.

What I don't understand is what a singleton wasp was doing in the house, twice, in the late evening. I don't know how to sex wasps, and don't particularly want to find out, but I do wonder if it was a queen scouting out for possible nest sites; if so, I'm glad the thing is dead: I've witnessed wasp nest disposal once in my life, and that will suffice. Thank you.

Comments

[drpete.livejournal.com]

It was probably a queen looking for a place to over winter before starting a new nest next spring.

Mind you, you've got a hornet in your picture. They really are nasty vicious aggressive buggers and don't mix well with people.

[ccomley.livejournal.com]

This time of year, wasp communities break up. The new queens leave the nest and look for somewhere quiet to hibernate. They won't look for a new nest site until the spring. Teh remaining workers tend to go silly-season, in teh remaining week or so before they start to die off. But those are small "ordinary" wasps.

Your picture isn't clear enough - if taht's about 50% larger than a normal wasp, and the colour of legs, etc, tending more towards orange than yellow, it's a hornet.

Contrary to old wives opinions, (Tsk, Dr Pete!!) hornets are generally NO problem for people. Where regular wasps are omniverious, esp late i the yaer, and will go for your jam sandwich as soon as your hamburger (and all the apples off my trees!) hornets remain pretty firmly in the carnivour camp, including munching down on regular wasps. So thet're not really competting with us for food. Hornets tend to fly from place to place about ten feet up, so mostly all you'll ever notice is a fairly low pitched "bazzzz" as they pass overhead, where wasps tend to travel at nearer five feet up so you are more likely to come nose to nose with one. Hornets tend to nest high up in trees though they *will* use similar spots to wasps at times, so you can find them in the eaves of your house, etc. Hornets will only gang up and attack if you get within the "alert" radius of their nest. Normally, this radius is *less* than the nest's height above ground!

Hornets hunt by day and by night, at night they will gather to a light source because it's where they find the juciest moths!

[perlmonger.livejournal.com]

Makes sense. I'm fairly unconcerned about wopses mostly; I've found that that generally if you don't hassle them, they return the favour - flailing at them is contraindicated!

Still don't want to share a house with one, let alone a nest of them, though :)

ETA that the size (something over 30mm from snout to abdomen end if uncurled) is clearer in the other photo I put on flickr.

[ccomley.livejournal.com]

At least in our climate the workers all die off in winter leaving just the hibernating queens to start new colonies next year.

Stories tell (possibly DG) of events in Australia where they don't die and the nests get so big and heavy that dropping through the ceiling and landing in the lounge when you're sat watching telly...

> Flickr

That's a hornet, she* was probably just out hunting for her tea.

* workers, *vastly* the most likely sort to see out and about, are sterile females, only the drones are male, not that I can tell them apart, for all I know this could be a new queen...