Insect ident please

[mercalia]

killer wasps

[PDQ Mobile]

A common wasp!!
There are several species but looks like an ordinary one to me.
Sadly not a furry bee.

[Mick F]

Nah, not a wasp. Common or otherwise.
They don't fly like wasps, or sound like wasps, and they don't act like wasps.
They're too small as well, let alone the wrong shape.

We've had wasp's nests and we have wasps round here, but never seen anything like these before.

If they are wasps, I'll be squirting the fly spray down their hole. That's how we got rid of the last lot.

[Cunobelin]

I did think they might be "Digger Wasps"

However these tend to have single nests in a communal area as opposed to using a single nest with entrance

[PDQ Mobile]

They are IMHO definitely a species of wasp.

If I might quote you from the OP,"They don't seem threatening and we're not bothered by them."

Why kill them?
Wasps are very beneficial to the environment.
Eating and destroying many pests.

Out in the open the present little danger.
And are actually rather interesting to observe.

[rjb]

Be careful you don't open up a Hornets Nest

[Mick F]

They are IMHO definitely a species of wasp.

If I might quote you from the OP,"They don't seem threatening and we're not bothered by them."

Why kill them?
Wasps are very beneficial to the environment.
Eating and destroying many pests.

Out in the open the present little danger.
And are actually rather interesting to observe.

Agree on all points ............... except - as I said at my OP - they are in a bank outside the bedroom window.

Maybe 4ft away and about 5ft up the bank ..............and we live in a bungalow with all the windows and doors open.

Wasps are very very annoying in the way they fly and buzz. Some folk are scared stiff of them.
These could be a sort of wasp, but there is no way on Earth that these are your bog standard common wasp.
Never ever seen anything like these before, hence my OP.
I know what common or garden wasps are like, and these ain't they.

I'll try and get another one. They're not at all aggressive.

[thirdcrank]

Looking at the pics and ignoring its size, that appears to have a pretty much wasp-like appearance.

[Mick F]

Well ....................
They are bigger now!
When we first saw them yesterday morning, they were tiny. I called them small like a small fly.
The ones I've just caught are bigger.
They must be growing.

My apologies, they seem to be your common or garden wasp. Too small to be wasps when I was first studying them, but they have grown in the past 36hrs.

Their days are numbered. We cannot have a wasp's nest 4ft from the bedroom window.

[Cunobelin]

Be careful you don't open up a Hornets Nest

That was a stinging rebuke

[PDQ Mobile]

Be careful you don't open up a Hornets Nest

That was a stinging rebuke

A waspish reply!

[Cunobelin]

Well ....................
They are bigger now!
When we first saw them yesterday morning, they were tiny. I called them small like a small fly.
The ones I've just caught are bigger.
They must be growing.

My apologies, they seem to be your common or garden wasp. Too small to be wasps when I was first studying them, but they have grown in the past 36hrs.

Their days are numbered. We cannot have a wasp's nest 4ft from the bedroom window.IMG_0493.JPG

The biggest nest found in the last 50 years was in a Southampton pub.....

[Mick F]

We still have the hornet's nest up in our loft. Maybe 2ft across.
Deserted now, but the loft was infested with huge hornets!
Good job we don't go up there very frequently.

After they left, I blocked the hole up, but I understand that they never come back to somewhere they've nested before.
Hornets are fine. No issue with them. Totally non-agressive and keep themselves to themselves. They only look fearful, but they mean no harm and rarely sting.

Wasps OTOH are annoying in the extreme and will sting at will.

I've found a long length of plastic 40mm pipe in the workshop - actually two lengths plus a coupler unit. 8ft or more in total.
If these things become an issue to us, I'll stick the tube over their hole and empty a fly spray aerosol into it. Maybe wait until darkness.

I'll give them a day or three to annoy us ........ or not.

[Mick F]

Got another.
After photographing it in the tweezers, I dropped it onto the decking on the patio and thought no more about it whilst sitting in the sunshine with a beer.
Next thing I knew, one of his mates came along and hovered about and even picked it up to get it going, then nudged it to wake it up, then gave up as a bad job.
Fascinating to see the teamwork.

This is a good shot of the critter.

[rjb]

Put a bowl of ale out for them and let they die happy.