Our country can expect a greater number of wasps that are already flying, but after encountering a hornet’s nest, consider whether it is necessary to remove it or remove it. So said biologist Arnold van Vliet of Wageningen University. Wasps significantly reduce the inconvenience of other insects, especially flies. Just like mosquitoes and earlobes, for example, they are attractive prey for wasps.
According to Van Vliet, the expectation that there will be many more hornets this year has now come true. There are already “a lot of them”. He relies on reports of wasp nests from pest control services, who sometimes say they haven’t seen them like this in twenty years, and on observations. Even one pesticide supplier had to say no. Van Vliet predicts that there will be more wasps soon: “Nests are still developing in many places and the peak of the disturbance has not yet come.”
Things can go fast: a queen wasp can lay about 300 eggs per day when the nest is at its maximum growth. The egg hatches after about five days. The number of queens raised by a nest varies from 750 in a small nest to as many as 2,000 in a large wasp’s nest.
High temperature in winter
Years with many and little wasps in turns. This is partly because in a year with so many wasps, there is less food for the insects. As a result, the condition of the new queens is less good and more diseases occur.
There wasn’t a lot last year, so it’s no surprise that there are a lot now. Another reason is the temperature. An English-language study found that the higher the temperature in winter and spring, the greater the number of common wasps, says Van Vliet. “The last winter temperature of 5.7 degrees is the sixth warmest winter since 1901. Spring is 17th with an average of 10.2 degrees.”
Stay away from smells
You can scare away wasps with strong scents (carnations, lavender) because they don’t like it. What you shouldn’t do, Van Vliet says, is hang a wasp trap near your door or on your balcony. Experimental research shows that wasps fly faster on objects if you see more wasps around that object. Even fake wasps have the same effect.”
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