Spotted today: First Waspyfecker of the year ...

[Fab Foodie]

Oooooh, I'll 'ave him/her ....

 

[threebikesmcginty]

We had a couple of the stripey bastards in the house last weekend, I ushered them off the premises in the nicest of fashion - that is if you like being picked up in a giant glass with a huge postcard on top and then flung out of the window.

Public warning now though*, any more of you fugs and it's rolled up newspaper time

*can wasps read...oh well tough titty!

 

[threebikesmcginty]

[QUOTE 1766284, member: 45"]And a bumblebee the size of an elephant.[/quote]

Saw one of those too, African Bee judging by the size of its lugholes.

 

[Fab Foodie]

[QUOTE 1766284, member: 45"]Yeah, the huge hibernators seem to be waking up. We got a couple last weekend.

And a bumblebee the size of an elephant.[/quote]

Yep the bumbleboys are monsters so far this year.

 

[vernon]

Are the ones out now just the queens? I've seen one as well and it was bloody big!

Almost certainly queens on the search for somewhere nice to build a nest.

 

[tyred]

Hate them. Time to get the shotgun out

 

[Bman]

Hate them. Time to get the shotgun out

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKlkD-D20OI

 

[Dayvo]

Seeing as spring has almost arrived I'm happy to let all the bugs and insects live and enjoy their short lives. It's not until the autumn that wasps become a nuisance, and it's never really enough hot here to warrant killing a few flies. It's only mosquitoes that really annoy me, and I will not let the bastards have a chance to breed/bite.

 

[Rickshaw Phil]

I saw my first wasps of the season about 4 weeks ago.

Seriously though, I can't stand the blighters. Squashing one now means one less nest to deal with later on in the year.

 

[Col5632]

Cant stand them either, they dont even serve a purpose

 

[rich p]

I saw a Red Admiral in the garden a couple of weeks ago and another today. I hope they find each other

 

[Dayvo]

I saw a Red Admiral in the garden a couple of weeks ago and another today. I hope they find each other

They're probably looking for a Rear!

 

[rich p]

I'm still looking for a Painted Lady

 

[vernon]

Cant stand them either, they dont even serve a purpose

That's where you are wrong.

WASPS are predators of flies and caterpillars. One wasp may make several predatory expeditions an hour. One nest could contain a couple of thousand adult hunters. That's a lot fewer caterpillars and flies in a garden, even after one day. Wasps can convert your garden fence into a three-dimensional paper architecture that can support at least 10 times its own weight. That seems to me worth a round of applause. One wasp can provoke limb-flailing frenzy in a creature 100,000 times its own size, a defensive, yes defensive, advantage that should impress any military strategist. Wasp grubs are the favoured diet of that strange bird of prey, the honey buzzard ​

(Pernis apivorus) ​

- long may it survive. Even if you are decidedly against wasps, at least learn to respect the enemy. There are possibly a thousand species of social wasps worldwide. Their colonies range in size from two adults to about one million (yes, a million wasps estimated in one nest of a South American species). In Britain we have seven species of wasps: the hornet, ​

Vespa crabro ​

(only in southern England and becoming rarer), two species of Dolichovespula (square-faced, rather ignorant-looking, making nests with narrow horizontal bands) and four species of Vespula with prettier, heart-shaped faces and nests that are a mosaic of shell-like patterns. So, next time you get stung cry 'Hallelujah, the world would be a duller place without wasps!'​

​

(Dr) M. H. Hansell, Dept of Zoology, University of Glasgow

 

[Col5632]

That's where you are wrong.

That doesnt mean i cant still hate them