Wasp Nest

[triffid]

Wasps in the loft? Fine -- most years our roofspace hosts one or two monster nests.

Wasps in the garden/ on our lottie plot? Welcome, please take all the caterpillars you want.  ;D

Wasps nesting in the lottie shed? Sorry, not possible. I'm highly sensitive to wasp stings (hospital last time) so it's just not worth the risk. Queen wasps get put out of the shed (caught in a jar and carried to the far end of the site) till I lose patience; if they won't give up on the idea of nest-building in the shed, I do kill them. 

[triffid]

[gaz2000]

few years back i slipped my shoes on at work before i was about to leave after wearing wellys.and got a shocker...

HORNET INSIDE..

stung my little toe,and the beast was as big as my thumb  ;D

[redimp]

I can remember a friend in the village saying he witnessed a wasp, catching a cabbage white butterfly, taking its wings off, and taking the body away to the nest.  Now if that's not a good guy, what is. ;D  The less cabbage whites in this world the better.

valmarg

I have watched (and my children were with me watching) a single common wasp demolish about 20 cabbage white caterpillars on a nasturtium.  It stung them all then made repeated visits to cut them all in half and carry them back to where the nest was.

[Robert_Brenchley]

I can remember a friend in the village saying he witnessed a wasp, catching a cabbage white butterfly, taking its wings off, and taking the body away to the nest.  Now if that's not a good guy, what is. ;D  The less cabbage whites in this world the better.

valmarg

I've watched them doing this to bees. Mostly they bite off the abdomen ant fly off with that while the rest is still wandering about wondering what's happened. Occasionally they bite off the legs and wings and fly off with the whole thing, which is bigger than the wasp.

[valmarg]

Natures cruel R_B, and a predator only sees food, not whether it's one of our 'good guys'.

Sorry to go off at a bit of a tangent, but the most upsetting thing I have seen recently is a sparrowhawk catch a blackbird.  Fine.  But it was plucking is before it was dead.  It took all my self control not to go out and shoo it off, but I knew if I did the blackbird would probably not survive, and the sparrowhawk would only have to catch something else.

valmarg

[tonybloke]

back on target!!
check this out for a wasp nest!!
http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/8191662.Massive_wasp_nest_in_city_pub/

[Robert_Brenchley]

I've heard of nests occasionally surviving the winter, and this is probably a case in point. It was round a pub chimney so it would have been warm, though I do wonder what they fed on in the cold weather. There's a massive nest in the University Museum in Oxford; if I remember right, they collected two nests, put them together, and they amalgamated. This could have begun as multiple nests, so I wonder how many queens it had laying away in there.

[goodlife]

Whoaahhh...now that would make me swallow few times and scratch my head too if I would get a call for one of those... ::) Biggest I have had to deal with was size of the football...and that is tiny compairing to that...
I think if I would have come across nest that size I would refuced to kill it....what is a chance to see one of those again?....shame...