Family Feud

I have heard honeybees described as 'vegetarian wasps', which makes wasps 'carniverous bees'. It's a bit more complicated than that though. Adult wasps (like adult bees) don't really need protein for themselves, only for their growing larvae, so they chop up and carry home to the nest the prey they catch. These include aphids, caterpillars and many other insects including, from my observation, the dead - or nearly dead - bodies of bees that have been ejected from the front of the hive by the undertaker caste of the colony

Adult wasps need sugar as an energy source, and are often seen foraging the same nectar plants as bees. Like bees, they also eat honeydew from aphids. Unlike bees, however, wasp larvae in the nest exude a sugary substance that the adults consume - I've heard this described as a 'reward' for feeding the larvae, but that seems a bit anthropomorphic

All that is fine while there are plenty of insect prey, plenty of nectar-producing flowers and the colony has lots of brood, producing lots of sugar. By the time August arrives, however, most nectar-bearing flowers are over, the aphids are no longer pumping out honeydew, and the wasp colony is in decline as the queen nears the end of her life and lays less and less eggs. Adult wasps them become hungry and desperate. This is the point in the year when they become most persistent in their pursuit of fizzy drinks, ice cream, jam sandwiches and - more pertinently for me - honey stored in hives by their meek, vegetarian cousins

Bees post guards at the entrance, who can use pheromones to call in reinforcements, if need be. But desperate wasps may still try to force their way in, and fights to the death break out, with the insects trying to bite one-another's vital body parts or sting each other to death. Beekeepers try to help but cutting the entrance size to a minimum - turning the hive into a defensive keep - but small colonies can be robbed out and destroyed

Mrs M noticed this nest this morning as we were leaving the hives - it is only four or five metres in front of them. I'm afraid that is too close for comfort and, this evening, we returned with a can of insecticide and a concrete slab to cover the entrance. Not something I enjoy doing at all, but necessary in this case