Wasps scraping or something?

[Amoeba]

Little wasps, don't ask me what kind because I only ever see one type of wasp round here and I don't know what it's called. They were up at my granny's fence and the bamboo sticks in the next guy's garden busily tapping and scraping away at the wood and bamboo. I think anyway, I'm just going by the sound the were making and the way the appeared to "hump" the fence and bamboo. Sorry it wasn't a very tasteful description but it's the only way to describe it that I could think of. Every time they made the humping motions there was a tapping/scraping sound coming from them.

I was standing in the garden and I could hear it from the other end and got drawn close by the noise, I wouldn't have expected it to be wasps though. I thought it was birds or something at first. What could they be doing? I spotted around three of them, have no idea if there were more.

[JRsbugs]

Wasps scrape wood or bamboo to make their nests. I have a few Dolichovespula sylvestris eating my garden seat but I don't mind, they don't take much and are interesting to watch. Other species do the same.

Adding that I don't hear a noise when they chew the wood, could the noise be something else?

Janet

[Amoeba]

Oh that's interesting, thanks for the info. Hope it's not too close to the garden, because I can't see my granny or her neighbour tolerating them.

Yeah, the noise was precisely when they were making scraping motions, and was loudest when I was close to them, so that's how I know it was them.

[Bruce Williams]

Yes as Janet said, they are collecting wood needed to make their intricate paper-like nests. Wasps enthusiastically scrape wood from our south-facing garage doors every year - I'll paste a photo showing the result later today. They also make the scraping noise you mentioned Amoeba - I wonder if it depends on the surface (acoustics maybe) they are scraping?

Bruce

[Bruce Williams]

Pics as promised. This is the result of 2 years wasp scraping:



Close-up


Bruce

[JRsbugs]

Good to see you are helping your local wasp population Bruce!

It could be to do with acoustics, bamboo is hollow so could resonate through like a musical instrument. Your shed has an enclosed space so similar effects could be happening.

[Johnny Redgate]

Wasps scrape my barn doors, especially the oak doors and not the treated soft wood. I was wondering the other day how long it would take them to reduce the doors themselves to paper thin. I'm not sure how to measure the depth of a wasp scrape.