I'm not sure if it is exactly the same one, but we had some notably aggressive type of wasp trying to nest in our beech hedge a couple of years back, and we both got stung. Some of them chased me all the way down the garden when I did something to upset them. I was rather confused when I tried to locate where they were coming from precisely, because I expected them to be in a hole in the ground, but there wasn't one. I read about it afterwards, and it was something that had come in from the continent with the warm weather, and this type likes to nest in places like untidy hedges. Fortunately they didn't like the hedge after it had been trimmed and bxxxxered off before I got to them with the chemicals.

This year we found a queen hornet trying to set up a nest in a cardboard box containing spare bicycle bits in the garden shed. We got her out of the building and and squashed her tiny beginnings of a nest. I thought we had disturbed her sufficiently that she would go somewhere else, because she flew off. But she was back the following day and I got rid of her in permanent manner. Sad really because they are magnificent insects, but I can't really have a nest of hornets in the shed, me being allergic to wasp stings and my nearly-two-year-old daughter running around the garden. She's already got stung by a wasp this year when she picked one up.

Wandering off a second, we have got some relatives staying at the moment, and they tell me they are convinced they saw a firecrest in the garden yesterday. I pooh-poohed, said must be a goldcrest, but he assures me he can tell the difference.

On Jul 11, 1:41 pm, "Mary Fisher" wrote:
"rehn" wrote in message

...

I general, try to kill as many wasps as possible, it is the homeless

wasps that are most annoying and and looking for sweets.

That's not true, you don't understand the life cycle of wasps.

Mary

If so, please educate me, or at least gime a pointer to where I can
read about the life cycle of wasps.

On Jul 11, 4:24*pm, rehn wrote:
On Jul 11, 1:41 pm, "Mary Fisher" wrote:

"rehn" wrote in message

...

I general, try to kill as many wasps as possible, it is the homeless

wasps that are most annoying and and looking for sweets.

That's not true, you don't understand the life cycle of wasps.

Mary

If so, please educate me, or at least gime a pointer to where I can
read about the life cycle of wasps.

www.google.com should be a good start...

Cat(h)

In message , Mary Fisher
writes

"Stephen Wolstenholme" wrote

How did they know he was sensitive? Do sensitive people smell
different?

No. But they don't sting for fun.

I suffer from hay fever, which originally showed itself as a swelling of
my lower lip, and sometimes, scarily, my tongue. Allergy tests said
"unspecified allergy, slight cat fur and grass reaction"
I dismissed this, since I could nuzzle our cats' fur with no effects,
but when the dog licked my mouth one day I had a serious swelling of
lips and tongue in the night, despite washing my mouth immediately.

To get to the point, for this reason I was always nervous about bee or
wasp stings, until I was stung for the first time two years ago.
A bee had crawled between my foot and my sandal, and must have been
squeezed enough to sting my toe.
It felt like a thorn in my toe, and I did a dance until I extracted it,
but no allergic reaction.
--
Gordon H

In message , Mary Fisher
writes

"Gordon H" wrote
wasps

They're not interested in you though, unless you disturb the nest or touch
one.
Mary

The one my wife sat on got a bit peevish and stung her bum!
I saw it on the chair and shouted too late.
--
Gordon H

"Gordon H" wrote in message
...
In message , Mary Fisher
writes

"Gordon H" wrote
wasps

They're not interested in you though, unless you disturb the nest or touch
one.
Mary

The one my wife sat on got a bit peevish and stung her bum!
I saw it on the chair and shouted too late.

Any insect perceives pain as a threat to its integrity and attempts to
defend itself. If someone sat on me I'd like to have some way of
retaliating.

The first time I was stung by a wasp it was on my bum. I looked in The
Readers Digest Book of First Aid, Home Remedies, or somesuch and read that I
must hold the affected part under cold running water.

That book lost all credibility so it was dumped.

Mary
--
Gordon H

"rehn" wrote in message
...
On Jul 11, 1:41 pm, "Mary Fisher" wrote:
"rehn" wrote in message

...

I general, try to kill as many wasps as possible, it is the homeless

wasps that are most annoying and and looking for sweets.

That's not true, you don't understand the life cycle of wasps.

Mary

If so, please educate me, or at least gime a pointer to where I can
read about the life cycle of wasps.

It's complex but the relevant part is that adult social wasps don't need
protein, they're fully formed, they need energy - sugar. The larvae need
protein, they grow at a fantastic rate.

Adult wasps forage for protein in the form of meat (social bees' protein is
pollen). They will take living insects, carve neat chunks out of living
caterpillars (I've watched it), from your meat sandwich or pork pie (I've
watched that too and taken pictures) or dead animals. This is taken back
swiftly to the nest where it is fed to the larvae.

And this is the beautiful bit - in return a larva will secrete a sugary
solution which the adult will ingest.

So the adults take meat only to have a sweet reward.

Towards the end of the season the queen doesn't lay as many eggs so there
are fewer larvae to feed and there are very many more adults, far too many
to get enough sugar from the diminishing brood.

THAT'S when the adults begin to look for sugar for themselves. They're not
homeless, just hungry.

I hope that's enough,

Mary

In message t
"Mary Fisher" wrote:


"Broadback" wrote in message
...

As a bit of an aside I seem to have a wasp nest in an abandoned
mole/mouse hole at the edge of my lawn. Is this normal, all other wasp
nests I have seen are outside and consist of a "paper" ball?

It's normal for some types of social wasps to make nests in abandoned mouse
holes, excavating them to make the hole big enough. Bumble bees do the same.

Ah! A lady who knows something that I want to know. My daughter gave
me a bumblebee nesting box for Christmas and I followed the
instructions which said that a mouse nest should be put in the nesting
box to attract bees, so I got my local pet shop to stable his mice
overnight in hay and put that hay into the box (Ah, the obligation
that some gifts put on you!), but no bees settled in it. What more can
I do? It'll have to be next season now of course.

Michael Bell

--

Towards the end of the season the queen doesn't lay as many eggs so there
are fewer larvae to feed and there are very many more adults, far too many
to get enough sugar from the diminishing brood.

THAT'S when the adults begin to look for sugar for themselves. They're not
homeless, just hungry.

I hope that's enough,

Mary

Well, if they have -no- larvae to feed and to get sugar from ( if you
killed all larvae ) the adults are even more hungry.
So if you kill the nest, make sure you kill the adults too.

We used to have problems with wasp-nests in the attic. Very annoying
when up there looking for something in August-September.
What we did was to leave the hatch to the attic somewhat open. When
the queen in the spring is looking for a place for her nest in our
attic she flies through the hatch on her way out( seeing the light ),
into out living room and to the windows where we kill her.
If some queen is not trapped and manages to build a nest all the
newborn wasps goes through the hatch and is killed. The queen gets no
helper the the nest dies out.( the newborn are very confused and easy
to kill ) A lamp just below the hatch will make this even more
effective.

John

In message , Mary Fisher
writes

The first time I was stung by a wasp it was on my bum. I looked in The
Readers Digest Book of First Aid, Home Remedies, or somesuch and read that I
must hold the affected part under cold running water.

That book lost all credibility so it was dumped.

Mary

My dad used to take Readers Digest at one time, but the only feature I
always enjoyed was: It pays to increase your word power".

He never missed "Gardeners Question Time" on the radio, yet I don't
recollect him ever doing anything other than cut the grass. ;-)
--
Gordon H

In message , Michael
Bell writes

Ah! A lady who knows something that I want to know. My daughter gave
me a bumblebee nesting box for Christmas and I followed the
instructions which said that a mouse nest should be put in the nesting
box to attract bees, so I got my local pet shop to stable his mice
overnight in hay and put that hay into the box (Ah, the obligation
that some gifts put on you!), but no bees settled in it. What more can
I do? It'll have to be next season now of course.

Michael Bell

I'm no expert, but the last time blue tits nested successfully in one of
my nest boxes, there was a real battle between the tits and a large
bumble bee which tried to claim the box, so there could be something in
the theory, though the material they used was softer than straw.
I have some amusing video clips of the female tit dodging as the bee
emerged from the box, but the birds won in the end, against the
predictions of some birding people.
I could find no evidence of a bee's nest when I cleaned out the box,
which had four dead chicks, against the four I saw fledge.
--
Gordon H

The message
from Broadback contains these words:

I never worried about wasps until a few years ago when I got stung
several times. The next time the reaction was terrible, so now I am very
wary. As a bit of an aside I seem to have a wasp nest in an abandoned
mole/mouse hole at the edge of my lawn. Is this normal, all other wasp
nests I have seen are outside and consist of a "paper" ball?

Quite normal.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

The message
from Gordon H contains these words:
In message , Mary
Fisher writes

Don't worry about the nest, the wasps will die off in a couple of months or
so and the nest won't be re-occupied. If you try to kill the wasps or dig
out the nest while it's still occupied you're asking for trouble.

The council pest control man told me all that after he'd killed the
wasps in a corner of our loft. I called him because I was painting
the eaves of the house and they were buzzing in and out of a gap in the
woodwork as I worked. I'm not scared of wasps but the top of a
ladder is no place to be when they are constantly passing your head.!

I was up a ladder the other day and things the size of bombers kept
zooming by. I seem to have a hornets' nest in my gable-end.

They are very welcome. from time to time I see hornets flying about
carrying large caterpillars. Since I killed the last lot of caterpillars
on my jostaberries, the hornets (presumably) have kept them clear of any
more. Last year there were few hornets (nest about 250 yards away) and I
spent hours picking caterpillars of the jostaberries innit.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

The message
from "Mary Fisher" contains these words:

The first time I was stung by a wasp it was on my bum. I looked in The
Readers Digest Book of First Aid, Home Remedies, or somesuch and read
that I
must hold the affected part under cold running water.

That book lost all credibility so it was dumped.

Hmmm. The best remedy for a wasp or hornet sting is IME to cut an onion
across and rub the stung part with it.

Anything acid has a neutralising effect, too, 'cos a wasp orr hornet
sting is alkaline.

BUT

Don't do that for a bee sting, which is acid.

Bicarbonate of soda, washing soda are favourites. The remedy used to be
blue-bag, but when was the last time you saw a blue-bag?

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

The message
from Michael Bell contains these words:

Ah! A lady who knows something that I want to know. My daughter gave
me a bumblebee nesting box for Christmas and I followed the
instructions which said that a mouse nest should be put in the nesting
box to attract bees, so I got my local pet shop to stable his mice
overnight in hay and put that hay into the box (Ah, the obligation
that some gifts put on you!), but no bees settled in it. What more can
I do? It'll have to be next season now of course.

You can find a discarded robin's nest if you can't find a fieldmouse
nest. It's not the mouse having been there, I suspect, but the very fine
ready-woven fabric that fieldmice use for their nests which is
attractive.

Fancy mice may not make a suitable nest, even if you left them on the
job for weeks. Lots more fancy mice, though...

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig