Plants with Purpose - Vespa vulgaris – villain or vilified?
WHILE EXTRACTING honey the other day, we noticed that areas of comb on several frames had been opened, and the honey removed. If you’re a wee bit late taking the honey off, or the weather is bad for a few days beforehand, it’s likely for bees to move honey out of the supers “downstairs” into the brood chamber for winter use. That’s fair game.
But judging from the number of wasps about when we took the supers off, it’s probable they were the thieves. At the back end of the year, wasps (Vespa vulgaris) really earn their bad reputation. Not only do they nick honey off bees (with disastrous effects on weak colonies), they also make jam of your plums, lurk drunkenly in your windfall apples, pester your picnic and generally waft about two inches from your eyebrows whenever you try to take a sweet drink. On top of which, they are stroppy enough to sting when thwarted.
They have good reason. In a fearful breakdown of society, an outbreak of hedonism and despair follows hard on the heels of lust. In September the new queen wasps hatch and are mated. |
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The old queen stops laying and dies, and colony life becomes fragmented, then non-existent. The workers have no calling and no purpose in life. The flowers that fed them are dying and soon, with the frosts, the world will end and they will all die too. Wouldn’t it make you aggressive? (Any parallels drawn here with human society are entirely on the part of the reader.)
However, if you think that’s cause to damn them, listen to the rest of the story. In April, the new queens emerge from hibernation. Many folk believe they’re doing us all a service by killing the big spring queens, but only a tiny percentage of them will ever find a suitable nesting site.
As soon as the first eggs hatch, the greedy larvae have to be fed – and guess what their favourite meal is? All those caterpillars and insect pests that would otherwise build up in the spring garden! With around 15-20,000 larvae raised in each wasp colony a year, you can see what an important role they play in pest control.
The adult wasps – the workers – are so busy collecting caterpillars for the ravenous grubs, they rarely bother us all summer, feeding mainly on nectar just as the bumble bees do. It’s just unlucky that chucking-out time for wasps coincides with fruit ripening. That attracts them, so always pick your fruit and collect windfalls.
Wildlife in the garden is always such a fine balance, but it’s really hard to find any all-out, black-hearted villains. Mind you, I do begrudge them my honey – “Sorry, whose honey was that?” I hear my bees asking!!
© Margaret Lear
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