Wasps

Saw three of these beauties today while out looking for dragonflies near the Thames in Oxfordshire today. They're Argiope bruennichi , aka Wasp Spiders. The females are big, but the males are only about a 1/4 of the size and generally get eaten during copulation.

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Nice spider! Do they eat wasps?

Common house spiders (tegeria) finished off two wasp queens in my shed last year.

https://youtu.be/JfQF8HxZqXY

Chicken Vs Japanese hornets in France. The hornet loses.

My chickens were not too bothered eating the wasps I had. They did snap at flies, but maybe too much hassle for them as they were well fed.

I've not seen it, but reading around the subject, yes they do eat wasps and bees. The spiders take their name from their mimicking of wasps. There seem to be two hypotheses to explain this: 1.) that this is some form of camouflage, and 2) that it is to lure hymenoptera, including wasps, into their webs. Currently the lure hypothesis seems to be thought to be most likely - see https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rspb.2008.0062

Impressive chickens!

Uh-oh, Asian giant hornets are in Canada:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/28/canada-murder-hornet-british-columbia-sighting

Bad news.

Given my anaphylaxis living in woods can be a little anxiety inducing. Last night we had 3 hornets bashing against the windows. I needed a dump and only halfway through the process thought “what’s that noise?” and discovered the trio were now buzzing outside the bathroom window, which was open.

A sort of “yo dawg, I heard you like shitting so we gonna make yo shit yo’self while you shit” moment.

Chimney sweep is here today and I needed to clear out the ash from the log burner. Found two hornets and a wasp in the ashes for additional stress on my heart.

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James, look away now--I'm afraid that to me this article is clear evidence that vespa mandarinia is in the North-west US and South-west Canada to stay. I think they're kidding themselves if they think they can somehow find all the nests and stop them from spreading. Colony-forming insects are very successful for a reason.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/01/beekeepers-brace-for-next-round-with-canada-murder-hornets-aoe

Renovating a house, we pulled ceilings the down.

What do we see in a bedroom? A wasp nest. Oh oh!!!

But it is empty.

The cellar spiders probably made short thrift of the queen. We have no big house spiders either thanks to them, the enemy of my enemy...is still not allowed in bedrooms but otherwise welcome.

cycling into a very strong headwind on Monday and lips slightly parted, had a wasp zip into my face at full pelt lodging between my lips like I'd just caught a bullet.

The kindly little bastard managed to sting me in the .032 seconds it took me to astonishedly gob it out

This just happened to me. I'm now drooling and speaking like I'm fresh out from some serious work at the dentist.

The nest was probably abandoned a long time ago, and it's very unlikely that spiders got anywhere near a queen while the nest was inhabited. :)

(Famous last words--there's probably a kind of spiders that specialises in just that.)

This one was muttering something about watching C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.
It's a chilly 10°C at the moment in my garden.

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I had a queen up in the roofspace yesterday...

Put her in the shed but saw her fly off, she didn't like it.

We need to do work in the roofspace and working around a wasp nest isn't really an option.

The Belfast wasps are on the chilled out side not stingy bastards but near a nest, nope, not going to work.

There were big spider webs in the shed I'd suspect she took a wrong turn, and that was the end of her...

That's a queen. She'll overwinter.

A live (but drowsy) wasp in our bedroom today .. is this usual.. seems to have survived a significant amount of cold weather. Paging @Oliver Schick as resident wasp expert

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If you give it some sugar water (any kind of fizzy drink will do), it might survive for a little longer. Once it gets sugar, it'll have a surprising amount of energy again, but will probably fly away from the source you've given it, and as it generally can't find food any more, its time will be soon.