08/09/2025
It's been quite the summer for our striped friends! 🐝 While they often get a bad rap (especially when they crash our picnics!), wasps have been incredibly busy all season, largely unnoticed by most of us.
Throughout spring and summer, worker wasps have been tirelessly foraging for protein to feed their growing larvae back in the nest. Think of them as tiny, efficient pest controllers, preying on other insects, which actually helps keep our gardens healthy across the UK!
But as the days shorten and the weather cools, a big shift is happening. Wasp nests are naturally starting to wind down. The queen stops laying eggs, and the existing larvae mature. This means the worker wasps no longer have young to feed protein to, and their primary focus shifts to finding sugary energy for themselves. This is often why they become more noticeable and can seem more of a nuisance around our sweet treats and drinks in late summer – they're essentially just looking for a final energy boost before the colony naturally declines.
Soon, the original queen will die, and new queens will have left the nest to find a safe spot to hibernate until next spring. So, while we might be breathing a sigh of relief as they become less active, it's a good moment to appreciate the often-unseen work they've done all season!
This is a UK page.
