Just buzzing
WASPS are swarming – with Brits being warned to prepare for an invasion of the pests.
As we revealed yesterday, insurers Aviva have said the inconsistent weather so far this year may spark a surge in numbers in July and August.
While wasps have ruined many a picnic or outdoors lunch, how much do you know about these flying insects? has 15 stinging facts.
There are around 9,000 species
1 of wasp in the UK. Only nine of these form the large, social nests we usually think of – the others are solitary.
They are not all black and
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yellow. Wasps come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colours, with some only 1mm long.
The largest social wasp is the
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Asian giant hornet, which can reach 5cm in length.
It also has one of the most
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painful stings, which can cause throbbing for hours.
Adult wasps only feed on
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sugar – from flower nectar, honeydew produced by other insects and a sugary liquid made by their young.
But they feed their young
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on bits of insects they have killed and chopped up. They have powerful jaws for this purpose.
By late August there are no
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young in the nest to provide the sugary substance. Adults start hunting for sugar elsewhere and invading our picnics.
Nests can grow to huge sizes,
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with Australia boasting the biggest – containing up to two million wasps per nest. A twoyear-old German wasp nest found in Tasmania in April 2015 weighed an enormous 90kg – more than 14st.
Each nest is only used from
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spring until autumn. The workers die, while newly mated queens are the only ones that survive the winter, creating a new nest the following year.
Some wasps
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make homes by chewing wood into a pulp. In China, in the 1st century BC, people saw this and used the same idea to make the first paper.
Only female wasps can sting.
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They use venom to subdue prey and defend the nest. They also use it to protect themselves – sometimes attacking humans. And, unlike bees, they don’t
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suffer when they sting you. Bees die because their stings have a tiny set of barbs that hook into the – when it’s pulled it takes the whole muscle system with it. But wasps have
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smooth stings that can easily be pulled out of the
skin by the insect. If they run out of venom, they are able to simply make more.
They are not all bad though –
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wasps play an important role in keeping our ecosystem balanced. Without them, the world could be overrun with spiders and insects. Each summer, social wasps in the UK capture around 14million kilos of insect prey, such as caterpillars and greenfly.
The name of the rugby union
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team Wasps dates from 1867 when insect monikers were fashionable for clubs. The semi-pro Scottish side Alloa Athletic FC also has the nickname Wasps.