Thread: Wasps

Originally Posted by Ferret

And if you do get stung the CSIRO advises "follow this advice from 400 years ago: 'If any venomous beast, by his sting or biting have caused your flesh to rise…put upon the stung place the dung of a cow or ox very hot'."

So I'll get my shovel and go looking for a cow to get a fresh one before taking the wasps on.

Well, that advice is crap!!

European wasps in europe are not such a problem, because they are a native. In winter the cold knocks the nests around and wipes out huge numbers of them hence keeping a lid on numbers. The worry is that here, with the very mild (compared to Europe) winters the nests wont be controlled and numbers will rapidly escalate.
They are not like bees in that they are able to sting repeatedly.

Good that you knocked them on the head.


Martyn

The wasps are not European Wasps. Abdomen colouration is wrong and as Ferret noted the head and antennae are also the wrong colour. They are almost certainly native and non aggressive. Until I get to work tomorrow I couldn't even hazard a guess what species they are but I would add that wasps are part of the insect order Hymenoptera which is essentially the ants, bees and wasps. There are more that 9,000 described species in Australia and it is estimated that there are as many as 44,000 undescribed species. They are really beautiful creatures. It would be a shame to kill them unless it is absolutely necessary.

Cheers
KarlB

look like paper wasps, ah well too late they are gone now

It seems they were Paper Wasps
They had to go.
At first it was only a couple of pipes they were nesting in.I saw at least 8 nests,and there were 2 I couldnt find but had seen them coming and going from the spots.
Andrew

Here is a European Wasp

http://www.lga.sa.gov.au/webdata/res...dy_Picture.jpg

I know these don't appear to be Euro wasps. I do get a lot of Euro wasps at my place. I have found the best way to get rid of them is at night.

At night they are not aggressive and they are all at home. I just get the standard can of fly spray and soak the nest. I then just stand back and watch as they just fall to the ground and die. They do not fly around in anger they just drop to the ground.

Dave.

Originally Posted by garrycol

And they love Land Rovers - maybe because the little critters come from ole bl;ighty.

When I was rebuilding the rear X member of my 101 I found two living inside where it joins the chassis.

A couple of weeks back I took off the brake drums of a series 1 axle I have lying around in the back yard and each of the drums had a wasp inside.


Garry

I just found one today in my rear cross member. He was pretty lethargic and I was happy to kill it dead. I'd just been poking around there with bare hands too.

Got stung on the nose by one once. Made the eyes water. Now I kill them with extreme prejudice.