Wasps in firewood

[Ilovehills]

I`ve bit the bullet this year, had the gas fire taken out, and treated myself to a woodburner. I`ve never had one before and am totally new to the whole thing, and all is going well. It`s lovely

Except for..........

I keep finding massive wasps (they look like hornets) hibernating in the logs. To start with I wasn`t aware of it, and I brought a few in with the logs Scared the cr*p out of me! Now every time I go out in the garden for a bucket of logs I`ve got to check every log thoroughly before taking any indoors, that can`t be normal surely?

Does this always happen and I have to live with it? Or am I just lucky?

 

[PK99]

I`ve bit the bullet this year, had the gas fire taken out, and treated myself to a woodburner. I`ve never had one before and am totally new to the whole thing, and all is going well. It`s lovely

Except for..........

I keep finding massive wasps (they look like hornets) hibernating in the logs. To start with I wasn`t aware of it, and I brought a few in with the logs Scared the cr*p out of me! Now every time I go out in the garden for a bucket of logs I`ve got to check every log thoroughly before taking any indoors, that can`t be normal surely?

Does this always happen and I have to live with it? Or am I just lucky?

https://arbtalk.co.uk/forums/topic/37561-queen-wasps-in-logstack/

 

[Andy_R]

[QUOTE 5452326, member: 9609"]next years queens - I try to gently lift them off and drop them into next years supply before I bring the logs into the house, hopefully they will continue to hibernate then head off and do all the good work they do in the spring. Sadly some do get brought into the house, wake up with the warmth then unfortunately its not always good news for them

They really are truly wonderful insects that do so much good in the countryside and don't deserve the dislike people show towards them.

try to save some.[/QUOTE]
Social Wasps or Yellow Jackets apparently consume some 14 million kilos of pests such as greenfly, and caterpillars per year in the UK that would otherwise make quite a dent in our food crops. They are also excellent pollinators.

 

[Randomnerd]

If you have larch, it could be a larch fly. Big yellow legs. Alive, they bite and hurt. Burrow into larch and leave larvae

 

[welsh dragon]

We have a few wood wasps, but not many at all.

 

[PaulSB]

Never had wasps in the wood store but quite a range of other critters. Spiders and woodlice mainly. This year we have a lot, and I mean a LOT, of ladybirds.

It's been a fantastic year for ladybirds in our garden, we could regularly count 100+ on a shed and pergola under our sycamore. The woodshed is under a different sycamore and I think this explains the numbers in our firewood. I just pop them outside somewhere sheltered.

We mainly have orange and harlequin ladybirds both of which prefer sycamore as their summer host plant.

When we get wasps in the house I try to save them as they are hugely important garden insects.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Calling @waspyfecker

 

[Yellow Saddle]

Now, if we could only encourage all midges to hibernate in wood stores, I'll come up with a cunning plan to eliminate them.

 

[Levo-Lon]

Wood burners...AHH yes the great new air pollution device.

 

[Cycleops]

Wood burners...AHH yes the great new air pollution device.

Six times as much as a diesel truck apparently.

 

[raleighnut]

Six times as much as a diesel truck apparently.

So what's the alternative way of disposing of that wood, landfill or a bonfire.

 

[Levo-Lon]

So what's the alternative way of disposing of that wood, landfill or a bonfire.

Just makes all the save the world car fuel tax a load of tosh

 

[MachersMan]

I changed to diesel and spent £3.5K on a wood burning stove thinking I was helping the environment and now I'm an evil polluter. I'm now retired and don't have the means to convert to anything else.....tough, maybe the corporations who got the research wrong should cough up but I wont hold my breath.

Never had wasps in the wood store!

 

[Jody]

[QUOTE 5452868, member: 9609"]Energy from wood burning power stations is the new big thing, one down tyneside needs a loging truck rolling in evry 30 minutes (400,000 tons a year)[/QUOTE]

One down the road from us ships wood pellets in from America and then transfers them to the eco power station by lorry

 

[Ming the Merciless]

So what's the alternative way of disposing of that wood, landfill or a bonfire.

Let it decay naturally in the wood as it has always done.