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Wasps versus Bumblebees


Billhook
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At the log cabin I made a little bat box at ridge height

The bats of course spurned my work and the bumble bees took over.  All this year they have been doing well until a couple of weeks ago I noticed that some wasps were going in the little slot on the left.

The bees and wasps seemed to be living in harmony but today as I sit here there are very few bumble bees and the odd one or two buzzing about do not go in.

We had a large wasps nest inside the cabin a couple of years ago and suddenly a hornets nest was built right next to it and the hornets cleaned out the wasps nest to feed their grubs

i was wondering if wasps did the same thing to bumble bees although you would think that they would have trouble tackling something so big

The first image is of the bat box

I was hoping the Pipistrelles would land on the vertical ply on which I had routed footholds , the slots on the side were for a bit of air circulation 

The other picture is of the gap where the poplar Log has warped to leave a pencil sized space for the bats and their droppings are everywhere 

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Edited by Billhook
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Generally speaking wasps are aggressive little pricks and will steal nectar or young larvae, often damaging comb in the process (from experience with honeybees) I'd be surprised if they were living in harmony with the bumbles, more likely that they're robbing them.

They have their place, being aphid catchers, but I find it hard to tolerate them.

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Wasps are chancers, in the spring summer grubs of any sort (protein) is what they want, this time of year sugar is really what they want but as a bumblebee nest contains both it will be hard to know what they are looking for unless you look inside, maybe just a the last knockings from the old or weak colony. just the other  day I noticed some German wasps (big beefy wasps) going in a bait hive I left  for honey bees where there was some set honey. 
seems a good yr for the wasps. And wait till autumn, everyone will be cursing ?

 

it’s always worth clearing older nests out in the winter/early spring.

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