I awaken on summer mornings to the sound of bumble bees. Bizz. Stop. Bizz. Stop. Bizzzzzz. Stop. The morning cuppa they seek is found in the figwort blossoms below my open window. The figworts, genus Scrophularia, belong to the family Scrophulariaceae. I love that name. I love it because it sounds like a whole sentence […] Read more
Whoever said a picture is worth a thousand words could have been thinking of this one. You can see the glee in the wasp’s eyes as she makes a beeline for the all-you-can eat cafeteria. Michael Skeels, a regular reader and frequent contributor to this site, lives in Montana and owns the hive on the […] Read more
Wasps can be a problem for beekeepers in the autumn of the year. In fact, we usually don’t think about wasps at all until they begin casing our hives, looking for fresh meat. The biggest threat comes from eusocial species—those that are “truly social,” like yellowjackets. In all but the warmest regions of North America, […] Read more
Think again. The elegant and complex nests shown below were built this summer in two of my three swarm traps. I’ve been using the same three flowerpot-shaped traps for perhaps ten years, hanging them each year from the same three trees. In early spring, we go trudging up the hill with a ladder and the […] Read more
Beekeepers here in North America are all too familiar with the bald-faced hornet Dolichovespula maculata. Depending on where you live, this wasp may also be referred to as a white-faced hornet, blackjacket, or bull hornet. The bald-faced hornet is actually a close relative of the aerial yellowjacket Dolichovespula arenaria, which also can give beekeepers a […] Read more
Colony death by yellowjacket is common, but I’ve never heard as many yellowjacket stories as I have this year. People describe how colonies that seemed strong a month earlier are now gone, replaced by yellowjacket scavengers. Or they describe seeing yellowjackets freely entering the hive and seizing prey, undeterred by guards. What is going on? […] Read more
A long stretch of freezing weather is the best wasp control. Many of the overwintering queens succumb to the cold, which limits the nest density the following spring. But after a mild winter such as we had on the Pacific Northwest coast, the queens thrive in vast numbers. This is the worst year I have […] Read more