Over-sized wasps

[CuriousGeologist]

Hey guys, forgive me if I am asking a regular question but I have been in Australia for a year and just got back a few weeks ago. Whilst sitting in my garden one evening a big wasp that I had never seen before flew towards the lights around us. It seems attracted to the light (like a moth) is obviously nocturnal (something I thought wasps weren't) and is huge for what a wasp looked like when I last saw one in 2009!

Anyway here is an image, no scale in it but it is slightly over an inch long. (I also uploaded it to my photos or wherever, but it was too big so need another way to post!)

[The Woodman]

Looks like a good ol' Hornet to me.

[CuriousGeologist]

I am guessing it's not native? A European hornet? I've been asking the neighbours, apparently our village has been plagued by them all summer, eating all the fruit and new shoots on the apple trees

[The Woodman]

I'm no expert with Hornets but have encountered them when living in Somerset. I had a huge hest in my shed roof which grew so large it protruded on the outside of the slates. They would come into my kitchen at night if I left the light on and the window open and fly around like demented sparrows.

They are indiginous to Britain, but mainly southern distribution. I have seen one in south Cumbria and an ecologist friend of mine has seen one in the north of the county but they are rare up here.

[triops]

Hornet, the biggest and best tempered of our native wasps. They seem partly nocturnal-in any case, when light-trapping for moths hornets often come to the light. I have friends who get hornets in the kitchen every night during the summer. Their sting is no worse, generally, than any other wasp, and it really is difficult to get stung as they are so peaceful when undisturbed.

[Matt Smith]

Happily native - a distribution map can be seen here.

[CuriousGeologist]

Fair enough, I have never seen anything like it round here before in rural Worcestershire... though I guess I could be in the centre of that green blob in the middle of that distribution map.

Thanks for clarifying though - native, peaceful hornet it is... I'll tell the neighbours to stop spraying them!

[Gill Catton]

I wouldn't be convinced about them eating the new shoots of apple trees either, definately the fruit for the sugars and appple bark to build the nest but not sure about chewing up leaves... I could be wrong though.