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Produce => Wildlife forum => Topic started by: honeybee on June 05, 2005, 18:35:31
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OH made an amazing find today.
He was doings a couple of jobs in one of our sheds and came across this amazing wasps nest.
Neither of us has seen one before and we were amazed by the fine engineering.
After taking advice we decided as cruel as it seemed to destroy it as apparently they increase massively in size once the workers hatch and then become dangerous and difficult to remove.
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y199/Honeybee3003/May05002.jpg)
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y199/Honeybee3003/May05001.jpg)
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Sorry that the images are rather large, but i didnt want to reduce them too small so that you could see the finer details of the nest.
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Such clever construction! Great photos too!
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I have seen them before but never ceases to amaze me. thanks for sharing honeybee
MM
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I shared my shed with a wasps' nest last year and they never behaved the least bit threateningly; we just co-existed merrily. There was a second a few yards away where they were flying out across the path and they never bothered me either. I always leave them as they do so much good likking other insects. The only problems I've ever had were round beehives, as they'll kill the adult bees, rob the comb out, and sometimes kill a weak hive. I've found a way of stopping 95% of the problems though.
The only other thing was when there was a nest jst over the bathroom window one year. The nests collapse in late summer or early autumn, depending on the species, when the queens stop laying. The grubs are carnivorous; the adults feed them protein, and they produce a sugary secretion which the adults drink. Once there are no more grubs, the adults go looking for their sugar fix, and that's when they become a nuisance. So the girls got up and found the bathroom full of wasps one day. I was woken up; the elder of the two was hiding in her bedroom and wouldn't come out till the wasps were gone. By the time I'd got up, the little one had found some fly spray and was going mad with it, spraying everything that moved. The wasps were already almost dead.
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Isn't nature incredible :o
What a beautifully built nest..........seems a shame to have to get rid of it :(
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One of my neighbours got a wasp nest in her shed recently and it got such a problem that they had to get pest control in and when the guy cleared the nest there were hundreds of wasps.
And of course it would have meant that i wouldnt have been able to use my shed anymore as according to the research that i did, the movement of the shed door which the nest was attatched to, may have made them feel liable to attack.
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If the nest is on the door you'vereally got no choice, I agree. There can be anything from a few hundred to 30 000 wasps, depending on the species. There's a giant one in the University Museum in Oxford; they collected two and they merged. I dread to thing how many wasps there must have been in that.
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Fantastic piccy Honeybee.....I've never seen anything quite like that....beautiful!!
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:o Isnt it beautiful!
It looks like a garden light. It would look fab I think with a burning candle inside on a warm summer evening. Might not last long though! ::) ;D
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It makes me shiver just to look at it. I imagine all those evil little beings buzzing around inside. Ugh!
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what a work of art just a same its in your shed
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I think that it is a marvel of engineering, although I am allergic to wasp and bee stings, so go out if my way to avoid them.
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That's unusual; mostly people are allergic to one or the other but not both, since they're quite different poisons. About one in a thousand people are allergic, and even one sting can potentially belife-threatening; it's particularly common in beekeepers' families, since they seem to get sensitised by exposure to minute amounts of the poison carried home in clothes. There is a desensitising treatment available. I've only had a major reaction once; I was trying to get some bees out of a tree, and got over 100 stings while I was perched up a ladder and vulnerable as I couldn't run away. Most of them were on my ankles; by the I was feeling faint and end of the evening my legs were so swollen I could hardly walk. By the next morning there wasn't a trace of it, and I've never had the slightest reaction from a beesting since.
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:) Great pics :) honeybee :) I had a nest in my roof once they destroyed the roofing felt had to have it re felted there :o exspensive ??? as you say though they have to go as they do multiply at an amazing rate. Hence having to have roof done, we didn't know they were there to start with ??? :'( dangerous too if children about.
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This nest was way up the top of a SilverBich tree. I think it's a Hornet's nest?
(http://img275.echo.cx/img275/2064/dscf0829jpg24vt.jpg) (http://www.imageshack.us)
;D ;D ;D ;D
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Wow great nest Glyn, although my wasps are a lot tidier than your hornets dont you think, maybe mine are more of the perfectionist type ;D ;D ;D
Great pic, hope you didnt get to close ;)
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Looks like a wasp nest; hornets usually go for hollow trees. The Tree Wasp and Norwegian Wasp are the main tree nesters in the UK.
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Your probably right Robert, they also call them "Yellow jackets" over here.
I have to keep my distance.... am also allergic to them, although they don't scare me.
That paticular nest HBee, managed to survive the harsh winter..hence the ragged look.
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:) Am a regular visitor to the Sacramento Valley & have seen some amazing yellow jacket nests. :o I absolutely hate them & make sure I keep my distance. :) It's the meat bees that though that I am most afraid of they actually bite a chunk of you So painful I had one bite my leg once couldn't walk for a couple of days !!!!! They put dog food in the wasp catchers & they get thousands literally in them !!!!!!!!!!!!! :)
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"Shudder"
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:) Take it you don't have them there then glyn ???
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Not the meat-eater sort no?
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:) Good ;D Have some friends in Hamilton so maybe will venture up one day ;D
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I'm just 20-mins up the road from Hamilton, I'm in Brantford. ;D
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:) Will let you Know when / if we come ??? ;D ;D
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Maybe drop in for a cuppa...small world ain it? ;D
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:) sure is & seems as though it's getting smaller ;D or I am getting to know allot of people all over the place ;D ;D ;D ;D