Keeping them out - While getting them in ??

[neiln]

That's my understanding, the worker wasps die off, the old queen and nest dies off but a batch of new queens head off at the end of the summer, hibernate over winter and start a new nest in the spring if they can. Not quite sure where the boys come into the cycle exactly.

As you say they are docile and don't seem any more awake if they've been in the house for days now hours (I've had a few fly ontop of the kitchen cupboard and emerge a few days later)

I have young kids though and don't want one standing on a wasp on the floor and being stung. Although summertime somebody stood on one last winter without noticing... The wasp must have been very sleepy to not sting as it was squished.

 

[openspaceman]

9 hours ago, neiln said:

Not quite sure where the boys come into the cycle exactly.

When the new queens leave the nest so do the drones and they compete for the queen by flying the highest with her, the queen then consummates the affair by ripping the gonads off the winning male and thereafter using that to fertilise her eggs for the rest of her life. All the remaining drones die along with the workers.

[sime42]

Some life that, who'd want to be a male wasp eh?! Maybe they can be forgiven for being annoying little buggers some times. .

[Retired Climber]

2 hours ago, openspaceman said:

When the new queens leave the nest so do the drones and they compete for the queen by flying the highest with her, the queen then consummates the affair by ripping the gonads off the winning male and thereafter using that to fertilise her eggs for the rest of her life. All the remaining drones die along with the workers.

I think I've been out with her. 😆

[Steven P]

Yup, that's what I was told about wasps too, the nests last a year, the old queen dies and so do the workers, the new queens find somewhere comfy for the winter after using the males, in the spring the new queens come out and make a new nest, lays eggs and off it goes again. If you see an old wasps nest it -should- be OK to remove it, they don't reuse them (often!).

 

Never had rats yet, but have had mice nests (abandoned during the winter when I get to those logs, not sure where they go to hibernate), I get toads in the bark on the floor, all sorts of beetles and woodlice, spiders, not had a wasps nest in the log pile (guess it is only a matter of time), but I did get a wood wasp one year - they are huge but harmless (?).

 

 

Woodlice.. if you are that way minded you can cook and eat them.

[htb]

Pine martens breed in the wood stores, so need to alternate stores as season changes. Mind you the store is big enough to share being a covered silage pit.

[sime42]

20 hours ago, Steven P said:

Yup, that's what I was told about wasps too, the nests last a year, the old queen dies and so do the workers, the new queens find somewhere comfy for the winter after using the males, in the spring the new queens come out and make a new nest, lays eggs and off it goes again. If you see an old wasps nest it -should- be OK to remove it, they don't reuse them (often!).

 

Never had rats yet, but have had mice nests (abandoned during the winter when I get to those logs, not sure where they go to hibernate), I get toads in the bark on the floor, all sorts of beetles and woodlice, spiders, not had a wasps nest in the log pile (guess it is only a matter of time), but I did get a wood wasp one year - they are huge but harmless (?).

 

 

Woodlice.. if you are that way minded you can cook and eat them.

I didn't know you could eat woodlice, don't think I am that way minded though. Not yet anyway. Saying that; I was filling a bird feeder yesterday with some dried mealworms and they really did smell very appetising. Just saying.........

[Stubby]

8 hours ago, sime42 said:

 dried mealworms and they really did smell very appetising. Just saying.........

They have a sorta Almond smell don't you think ?

Edited July 25, 2022 by Stubby

[sime42]

3 hours ago, Stubby said:

They have a sorta Almond smell don't you think ?

You must have the Almond flavour variety Mealworms then. Mine are distinctly savoury, very like good old pork scratchings in taste, sorry,  I mean smell!