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Wasps & hornets
Wasps and hornets are predators, very often people ask us, what purpose
do wasps serve? Being a predatory insect, they spend a lot of their
time hunting and catching smaller insects to feed to their larvae (young
wasp grubs), the insect prey is killed by the adult wasps and chewed up
into small food packages and taken back to the nest. It is difficult to
estimate just how many smaller insects are killed by a single wasp colony
through the course of a summer, but the number will be tremendous.
So in the natural world, wasps (although irritating to humans) do have
their role to play.
The Wasp
Hornets although much larger than normal wasps, are themselves classed
as a wasp (order: Hymenoptera) They are predatory insects the same as
normal wasps but are known to predate on larger insects, in fact they
will attack a normal wasp nest and kill the adult wasps enabling them
to raid the nest and take the wasp larvae back to their own nest as a
food source for their own young.
They are also known to attack honey bee hives for the same purpose.
The hornets nest although large in size, doesn’t hold as many individuals
as a common wasp nest, normally only 300 or so individuals.
The Hornet
Wasp and hornets are different to bees in several ways, they do not pollinate
flowers in the same way as a Bee does and they are not active throughout
the entire year like Honey Bees.
At the end of the wasp season, in the autumn, a wasp or hornet nest produces
special brood cells, these are for new queens and males. Once these hatch
out, they leave the nest and fly up in the air to mate. Once this has
taken place the males die off and the now fertilised queens find somewhere
to hibernate through the winter (often in loft spaces and garden sheds).
In the spring, these queens emerge from hibernation and find somewhere
to start a brand new nest.
Honey bees differ from wasps & hornets by staying active all year
round and storing food (honey) in the nest or hive, in the case of managed
honey bees, the honey is harvested and a supplement food source is provided
by the bee keeper.
The Honey Bee
