Wasps

Near not hear!

I’m afraid I don’t have any answer Midgey but hope someone with successful experience comes along to educate us both.

I hope so too! I’m getting really large ones and like Midgey I don’t want to kill them but I’m a bit afraid of them.

Are they really wasps?

Maybe it's just digger wasps?

I’ve just put up two waspinator after they made a home in my wall last year. Waiting to se if it deters them.

Just found this:
www.buglife.org.uk/bugs/bug-directory/digger-wasps/#:~:text=Digger%20wasps%20resemble%20social%20wasps,folded%20lengthwise%20when%20at%20rest.

I had them last year in the back garden and I’m not sure if they are digger wasps or ground bees. Both nests, from what I see, look the same. I had no luck deterring them last year, each day I found more and more nests! I went online for advice but they encourage we protect them. Unfortunately, I can see they are back again. Not many at the moment but I reckon they will be in full force soon. I don’t know what to do.

I listened to a gardening radio phone in just yesterday. One caller was seeking advice about what she thought were wasps burrowing in her rockery and lawn. The gardening expert said her description was suggestive of mining bees rather than wasps. Apparently they are similar in appearance.

She said they are active just now as it’s their mating season but will likely disappear again in a few weeks. She said they are very unlikely to sting and it’s best just to ignore them. She stressed they were very useful pollinators and appealed to the caller not to harm them. The caller said she’d just spent £12 on Amazon for a wasp exterminator spray!

swarmcatcher.co.uk/useful-information/what-to-do-with-mining-bees/

Yes Grannynanny, I think these are the ones, they first appeared in August last year and only disappeared around October when the weather changed. Some days they were active, other days they were less so, seemed to depend on the daily weather! Now they are here much earlier….

Grannynannywanny

I listened to a gardening radio phone in just yesterday. One caller was seeking advice about what she thought were wasps burrowing in her rockery and lawn. The gardening expert said her description was suggestive of mining bees rather than wasps. Apparently they are similar in appearance.

She said they are active just now as it’s their mating season but will likely disappear again in a few weeks. She said they are very unlikely to sting and it’s best just to ignore them. She stressed they were very useful pollinators and appealed to the caller not to harm them. The caller said she’d just spent £12 on Amazon for a wasp exterminator spray!

swarmcatcher.co.uk/useful-information/what-to-do-with-mining-bees/

I had what was definitely a wasp nest last year in my rockery. I have a wasp phobia so I’m afraid I crept out at dead of night with a torch and sprayed all around the entrance with wasp powder.

I’ve had mining bees as well one year but left them alone. To me they don’t look very much like wasps.

I have trawled the internet and the last suggestion I read was WD40! It is very smelly, but I think it has worked but until the sun is out tomorrow I won’t really know. I will update you all in the morning.

I have some digger bees under my shed. Small and slim but no problem. I'm doing No Mow May so happy to see them put and about.

Wasps are your friends in the garden.

They prey on all sorts of nasties - so they need help not hate!

I’ve not heard of these digger wasps you talk of. I’m thinking it’s a species we don’t have. In NZ the only good wasp is a dead wasp! They are an extremely nasty threatening pest. Here they find suitable accommodation and multiply like you wouldn’t believe, stumble on them inadvertently and you’d better run like the wind, they attack en masse.

The smelly WD40 worked, no dead wasps but equally no wasps around! Result!

They are probably 'digger wasps'. We have a large colony of them in our lawn quite close to the kitchen door. They do not live in big wasp's nests They each burrow a little hole in the ground leaving little volcano shaped burrows on the surface that help aerate the soil.

These wasps are harmless I walk over, and mow over the area they have colonised, without ever coming to any harm at all. they just continue to buzz around my feet doing whatever it is they are doing. They I have been doing so for 10 years at least.

Just leave them and enjoy the wildlife diversity of your garden. They will not sting you or mob you.

Oh please don't kill wasps. I know they are nasty stingy things but they do really useful work in the garden.
They eat aphids and other pests.
They only use the nest once and never return to it.

Well, I don’t know what time of year wasps become more active but, returning home after being away for two weeks to what was ( till today) warm, dry weather, there are no wasps flying around the holes in the back wall of my house. So I’m hoping the waspinators are working.

We have miner bees in our lawn every year, late summer time. I understand they don’t sting they never have, and they aren’t a problem despite the lawn they dig into is very close to the front door. Don’t kill them.

Asian hornets on the other hand are a problem, currently in Kent but likely to move up the country.