A Wasp-At Christmas?
- Thread starter Orionaut
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Still have butterflies here. It's been very mild so far. Was 18 in Monaco the other day.
It was hibernating in your loft - like many do - and you either a) woke it by disturbing it in the loft, or b) brought it down in a box of some sort and the temperature increase brought it out of hibernation.
We've had 5 or 6 instances of this over the last two winters, but we haven't had any wasp nests in our loft yet!
We've had 5 or 6 instances of this over the last two winters, but we haven't had any wasp nests in our loft yet!
Got the Wife to do it, yeah?
The wasps you see at this time of year will almost exclusively be Queens, every one that's come down from my loft has been. The males should be long dead by now.
Soldato
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Had a butterfly cruising around the house the other day 
I also had a wasp flitting around my back garden on Christmas morning.
How do you know if it's a queen? Are they big? This one was a good inch and half long, so huge enough to get me back to cooking in the kitchen. Maybe Mrs Punt sent it to end my cooling down break??
How do you know if it's a queen? Are they big? This one was a good inch and half long, so huge enough to get me back to cooking in the kitchen. Maybe Mrs Punt sent it to end my cooling down break??
I also had a wasp flitting around my back garden on Christmas morning.
How do you know if it's a queen? Are they big? This one was a good inch and half long, so huge enough to get me back to cooking in the kitchen. Maybe Mrs Punt sent it to end my cooling down break??
You'd know.
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Have you got a log burner.
When I log up the bins for going by fire I used to get wasps coming out of logs due to heat by fire - now when I log up the log seat outside back door I check each one and must have found about 20 hibernating on logs - Kill them by hitting with another log.
When I log up the bins for going by fire I used to get wasps coming out of logs due to heat by fire - now when I log up the log seat outside back door I check each one and must have found about 20 hibernating on logs - Kill them by hitting with another log.
Your clue is that it was alive on Christmas morning. The only wild wasps you're going to see alive at this time of year are Queens that have been hibernating. Food sources for wasps have been absent for far longer than it takes for them to starve, so Queens in hibernation are the only ones that won't have died.