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No Wasps!!

  • 23-10-2020 10:23pm
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 1,973 ✭✭✭


    Anyone else notice a lack of wasps this year? I actually dont think i seen a single wasp:(


Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 16,060 ✭✭✭✭iamwhoiam


    Eddie B wrote: »
    Anyone else notice a lack of wasps this year? I actually dont think i seen a single wasp:(

    Well there is one at least ! Walking minding my own business last week and one stung me , not once but twice .


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,164 ✭✭✭Damien360


    Eddie B wrote: »
    Anyone else notice a lack of wasps this year? I actually dont think i seen a single wasp:(

    Haven’t seen any since the hot weeks mid summer. I still see bees every day and particularly big bumble bees in my garden. Lots of bees this year and far more than any previous years.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,322 ✭✭✭JustAThought


    iamwhoiam wrote: »
    Well there is one at least ! Walking minding my own business last week and one stung me , not once but twice .

    Bad luck!!!! There has been very few this year but I’ve seen a few lately - mostly around my euonymous. ( it that’s not rude!)


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,168 ✭✭✭secman


    Been plenty of the bastards around, dieing off now fingers crossed.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,508 ✭✭✭PsychoPete


    I haven't seen any bees but seen quite a few wasps floating about just minding their own business


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  • Registered Users Posts: 443 ✭✭TP_CM


    I didn't notice my not noticing but you're right, I'm realising now I haven't seen a single one all year long.


  • Registered Users Posts: 35,346 ✭✭✭✭BorneTobyWilde


    Not as many wasps at all, huge decline. Maybe the lockdown had some effect on numbers.


  • Administrators, Computer Games Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 32,074 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭Mickeroo


    Saw one or two in spring and nothing since.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 47,997 CMod ✭✭✭✭magicbastarder


    yeah, saw a fair few. one was hassling me outside just a few days ago.


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Saw plenty of wasps and bees.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 10,943 ✭✭✭✭the purple tin


    A few around August-September but definitely less than you would usually see.


  • Registered Users Posts: 855 ✭✭✭SnowyMuckish


    My garden is usually awash with insects, I’ve noticed a huge drop in bees and flies in general, I saw wasps earlier in the year but not in the numbers you’d expect.
    Gardeners World did a piece this year about a German study saying that there has been a 75% drop in flying insects in the last 26 years. I think this is terrifying!


  • Moderators, Education Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 10,168 Mod ✭✭✭✭artanevilla


    Fùck wasps.


  • Registered Users Posts: 855 ✭✭✭SnowyMuckish


    I don’t agree, they are a really important part of our ecosystem regardless of how bothersome they are.


    https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-41042948


  • Registered Users Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7


    Mention of location might help?

    I do not remember seeing any wasps, and fewer bees; there is a nest nearby and usually the fuchsia is alive with them

    It has been windier this year than usual and that will deter them?

    west mayo offshore


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,589 ✭✭✭corks finest


    Eddie B wrote: »
    Anyone else notice a lack of wasps this year? I actually dont think i seen a single wasp:(

    I have ivy bushes in the back garden and have literally hundreds of wasps, bees, hornets, and lots of birds eating the holly seeds, carrigaline co Cork


  • Registered Users Posts: 18,996 ✭✭✭✭gozunda


    Came across two large wasps nests so far and loads of them around. No shortage whatsoever.
    Same as every year previously. Sometimes wish they'd buz off somewhere else ... :/


  • Registered Users Posts: 110 ✭✭Att vara en hest


    I've seen more wasps this late summer than I have in years... Last two-three weeks they've started disappearing though, thankfully.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,750 ✭✭✭Panrich


    Eddie B wrote: »
    Anyone else notice a lack of wasps this year? I actually dont think i seen a single wasp:(

    If you're feeling nostalgic, I'd recommend a trip to your nearest bottle bank.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,664 ✭✭✭CelticRambler


    Well that explains it. All your Irish wasps must have come over here to France and not been able get home. Absolutely plagued with them all summer and well into the autumn. Had at least fifteen nests in the car, the camper, the postbox, behind the shutters in the spare room ... stung at least four times. One day in August, I tried to introduce a young French lady to the pleasure of a scone with jam and cream, but within seconds of putting the jam on the scone, seven wasps had muscled in on the action.

    The bees, who have a hive in the back wall, have been very friendly this year, compared to most recent years (local apiculturalist says there must've been a change of management). Last week, they were gorging themselves on ivy flowers, right beside the vegetable patch, which made clearing the beds ... interesting!

    And then there's the hornets. They get the prize for funniest performance of 2020 - two enormous fat fellas laying into each other over a grape. FFS, lads, I said to them, there are more than enough grapes for ye - what's so special about that one? In the end, they fell to the ground (still fighting) and I ate the grapes myself.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 9,603 ✭✭✭Birdnuts


    gozunda wrote: »
    Came across two large wasps nests so far and loads of them around. No shortage whatsoever.
    Same as every year previously. Sometimes wish they'd fek off sonewhere else ... :/

    Wait till those Hornets arrive from the continent - already well established in the South of the UK:eek:


  • Registered Users Posts: 80,798 ✭✭✭✭Atlantic Dawn


    Only place I have seen them in big numbers is at bottle banks, not sure if it's wine bottles or lime still in Corona bottles that attracts them. Pesticides wiping them out like the bees, governments asleep at the wheel believing weather changing each year is a bigger issue.


  • Registered Users Posts: 18,996 ✭✭✭✭gozunda


    Only place I have seen them in big numbers is at bottle banks, not sure if it's wine bottles or lime still in Corona bottles that attracts them. Pesticides wiping them out like the bees, governments asleep at the wheel believing weather changing each year is a bigger issue.

    You're not wrong about bottlebanks. Passed one in a supermarket carpark during the Summer and the bottlebank was absolutely swarming with them. They like alcohol apparently.

    On the pesticide thing Ireland is in a fortunate position to have a very low rate of use as a large part is grassland. The biggest use of pesticides is generally in countries with significant amounts of arable and horticultural production.

    Among the EU Member States, Germany, Spain, France and Italy reported over two thirds of the total EU pesticide sales volume.

    https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Agri-environmental_indicator_-_consumption_of_pesticides


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,603 ✭✭✭Birdnuts


    gozunda wrote: »
    You're not wrong about bottlebanks. Passed one in a supermarket carpark during the Summer and the bottlebank was absolutely swarming with them. They like alcohol apparently.

    On the pesticide thing Ireland is in a fortunate position to have a very low rate of use as a large part is grassland. The biggest use of pesticides is generally in countries with significant amounts of arable and horticultural production.

    Among the EU Member States, Germany, Spain, France and Italy reported over two thirds of the total EU pesticide sales volume.

    https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Agri-environmental_indicator_-_consumption_of_pesticides

    Herbicide use though is an issue in terms of eliminating pollinator habitat in the likes of Grassland and other habitats eg. world of difference between a traditionally managed meadow and intensive reseeded PRG leys.


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