🐾 Maybe the reason I love animals so much, is because the only time they have broken my heart is when theirs has stopped beating.
Showing posts with label wasps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wasps. Show all posts

Saturday, 9 December 2023

South African Paper Wasps—Vespidae

 Don’t reach for the Doom!


These are the most common wasps and all species build papery multi-celled nests of chewed wood pulp and saliva. 

They are highly social. So if you see a paper wasp nest under the eaves, do not reach for the Doom. They are not aggressive and will not attack you. They are keeping the ecosystem in your garden in equilibrium, by preying on insect larvae and aphids.




They gather fibers from dead wood and plant stems, which they mix with saliva, and use it to construct nests made of gray or brown papery material. The resultant wood pulp is remarkably strong.


“Paper wasps have an interesting lifestyle. The nests are usually founded by a single queen. A mated female from the parental nest emerges in spring and starts building the nest. She becomes the queen and is soon joined by other mated females from the same nest to form a colony. The late-comers are relegated to the worker caste. After the queen has started construction of the first hexagonal cell of the nest, the worker females add more concentric circles of cells to enlarge it.

The queen will lay all the eggs. The worker females are destined to be the workers – building the nest, hunting for food and minding the offspring.”

— Read more here :


(The pics are of 4 different wasps and they are all chewing wood on my wooden clothes drying rack.)






Thursday, 27 June 2019

Guide to bees


Most of us have been there, sitting in a park or on our porch, enjoying the beautiful summer day and a refreshing cold drink, when suddenly an unidentified flying bugger approaches. Is it a bee? Is it a wasp? We’re just not sure!

So here's that long-awaited comprehensive guide to all those yellow stripey things!

P.S.: Please note, the Honey Bee can only sting once, after which it dies. So please be careful and try not to get stung, you will be saving someone's life!