Sounds of Summer ....

[AlphaZeroOne]

No, its not the screech of the Swifts or sounds of the dawn chorus. It was the sound of my wife calling to me the 'come and remove the wasp!'

I am certain that its not that unusual, but has anyone else seen wasps this year so far? The one that I gingerly removed to the garden shed, looked to me to be a queen; although smaller then I would have expected a queen to be. Any thoughts?

[aeshna5]

Any social wasps (Vespa, Vespula, Dolichovespula) should be only around as dormant queens at moment. But just a few years back (+ most of the books still do) say that only queen bumble bees survive our winter, whereas at least Bombus terrestris has some overwintering colonies in south (see them almost daily visiting Mahonia, winter-flowering Lonicera) + I think Eucera mentioned 1 colony this year of B. pratorum.

Things are changing, so maybe wasp behaviour will change, though being principally carnivores, they'd have to find enough insect prey.

I enjoy watching wasps, but don't like them indoors. For those people who don't like wasps, tell them if they're keen gardeners that wasps are excellent pest control critters!

[smartie]

I know that queen wasps use our roof space to overwinter and we occasionally see a very dozy one crawling about on the landing during the winter. I don't know what triggers them to emerge at the wrong time - mild weather or central heating perhaps?

[nightshade]

Not a lot of wasps about recently but they are the exclamation marks of summer

[wyevilla]

I found a dormant queen Common Wasp when I was refelting the shed roof this morning (the old felt was ripped to shreds by the storms on Thursday). The wasp appeared somewhat truncated with the abdomen drawn in which I take to be an adaptation to survive the cold by reducing body surface area. Another interesting thing was that the wings were slanted down either side of the thorax and the tips were under the abdomen. Again I suppose wrapped up until the spring.