So in the natural world, wasps although irritating to humans, have their role to play. Wasps and hornets are predatory insects and spend a lot of their time hunting and catching smaller insects to feed to their larvae young wasp grubs. Insect prey killed by the adult wasps is chewed up into small food packages and taken back to the nest.
These food parcels are then fed to the young wasp larvae which turn the exoskeletons chitin of these prey insects into a sugary solution which they feed back to the adult wasps. It is difficult to guess the exact numbers of insects which are killed by a single wasp colony through the course of a summer. It has been suggested that a single wasp nest will catch approx five metric tons of insects in one year.
While we are not entirely convinced of that number whatever it is, it will be substantial. As pest controllers, we are mainly called to deal with three types of social wasps which form colonies. There are many other types of wasps in the UK, but these are mostly solitary wasps. The German wasp builds its nest in bushes and trees. It is slightly larger than the common wasp and darker in colour. The hornet is noticeably bigger than your average wasp and can be an inch or more in length.
They tend to have more red colouring. The Median wasp. This is a social wasp like the common or European wasp, but most years it is normally out competed by the other species.
Hornets although much larger than regular wasps, are themselves classed as wasps order: Hymenoptera. They are predatory insects in the same way as common or German wasps but predate on larger insects. As well as being voracious and ecologically important predators, wasps are increasingly recognised as valuable pollinators, transferring pollen as they visit flowers to drink nectar.
It is actually their thirst for sweet liquids that helps to explain why they become so bothersome at this time of year. By late August, wasp nests have very large numbers of workers but they have stopped raising any larvae. All the time nests have larvae, the workers must collect protein, which accounts for all those invertebrates they hunt in our gardens.
The larvae are able to convert their protein-rich diet into carbohydrates that they secrete as a sugary droplet to feed the adults. With no larvae, all those adult wasps must find other sources of sugar - hence why they are so attracted to our sugar-rich foods and drinks.
When you combine that hunger for sugar with nice weather and our love of eating and drinking outside, the result is inevitable. A new study is taking advantage of wasps' love of our drinks to find out more about these fascinating and undervalued insects. Calling on members of the public to help, the Big Wasp Survey is asking people to build a simple wasp trap from a drinks bottle and a small volume of beer. The project, in conjunction with BBC's Countryfile and sponsored by the Royal Entomological Society, hopes to find out which species of wasps live where in the UK, and provide some baseline data for an annual Big Wasp Survey over the coming years.
As Dr Seirian Sumner UCL says: "The black and yellow wasps that bother us at picnics are social wasps and we would like to find out much more about where they live and how common they are; to do that we need the public's help". Insects are generally having a hard time; changing environments, changing climate, habitat loss and the use of insecticides are all taking their toll on these vital creatures. Yet, whilst many take up the cause of the honeybee or extol the beauty of butterflies some of the most fascinating and important insects remain the most reviled.
It's time we stopped asking "what is the point of wasps" and started to appreciate them for the ecological marvels that they are. Why do we hate wasps and love bees? Why is it so hard to swat a fly? Image source, Getty Images. To make matters worse, some wasps can be downright nuisances—they build nests under our eaves or in our lawns and swarm around our guests at backyard barbecues. If this has been your experience with wasps, you're probably wondering if we need these pests at all.
So what do wasps do, and are wasps useful? Paper wasps, hornets, and yellowjackets all belong to the same family—the Vespidae—and they all provide extraordinarily important ecological services. Specifically, they help us through pollination, predation , and parasitism.
Put simply, without wasps, we would be overrun with insect pests, and we would have no figs—and no Fig Newtons. Hornets and paper wasps prey on other insects and help keep pest insect populations under control. For instance, paper wasps carry caterpillars and leaf beetle larvae back to their nests to feed their growing young.
Hornets provision their nests with all manner of live insects to sate the appetites of their developing larvae. It takes a lot of bugs to feed a hungry brood, and it's through these needs that both hornets and paper wasps provide vital pest control services.
Yellowjackets don't get quite as much credit for being beneficial, although they should. Yellowjackets mostly scavenge dead insects to feed their offspring, meaning they prevent the bodies from piling up—like a cleaning service. Unfortunately, their scavenging habits and love of sugar puts them in close proximity to people, which almost never ends well for the yellowjacket or the person.
Researchers at the University of Florence recently discovered another important role of both hornets and paper wasps: They carry yeast cells in their guts. The researchers found that wasps and hornets feed on late-season grapes, which are rich in wild yeast. The yeast survives the winter in the stomachs of hibernating queen wasps and is passed on to their offspring when they regurgitate food for their young.
The new generation of wasps then carries the yeast back to the next season's grapes. So, raise your glass to the wasps and hornets.
In some cases, however, the costs of wasps—particularly for invasive species—far outweigh the benefits.
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