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Wasps

Latin: Vespoides spp.

Hornets - wasps
Hornets – wasps
Season for wasps
Season for wasps

The wasp is a wide category that covers digger wasps, parasitic wasps, hornets etc. Wasps are well known in their black and yellow striped abdomens and no less for their ability to sting. In Northern Europe there are about a dozen species of social wasps, which are very similar to each other both in way of life and appearances.

At our latitude wasp colonies are annual. This means that the nests are only used the year they are built. Old nests from earlier years are empty. It is the young, fertilized queens that overwinter. They wake of hibernation in April and all alone they start the process of founding a new colony. In late May, the first workers are on their wings and then each society steadily grows until August, when there are about 5,000 individuals. The nests are usually spherical. It is built by a paper-like material that the wasps make of wood fibre chewed with saliva. The larvae feed exclusively on meat. Their preys are mostly insects, which the adults catch for them, or it may be chunks of meat that adults bite of carrion. In exchange for the meat chunk that the larvae receive, it regurgitates a sugary liquid up which the adult wasp eagerly eats. The adult wasps primarily live of sugar in the form of nectar, aphid excrement and the like. In the autumn the machinery of their society gets messed up. Workers stops taking care of the larvae and live from that time on by doing nothing until the frost takes them. Most of the summer wasps are not particularly visible. They are busy building their nest and gathering food for their offspring. At that time, they can also get meat from butchers and fishmongers.

In the late summer the wasps become bothersome everywhere. This is partly because the number of individuals now has become quite high and partly because the workers no longer take care of the larvae and they rather find sugar or sweet juice wherever this can be found. It is particularly amongst bakers and greengrocers, at ice cream parlours, etc. as well as place where people eat outdoors.

Hornet, wasp, worker
Hornet, wasp, worker

In businesses and in stores where it is not possible to keep wasps effectively out, light traps with ultraviolet light, where the wasps are captured or killed, clear the problem. The most rational way to fight a local wasp infestation is to find and neutralise the nest. Nests may be sprayed with an insecticide from the bottom up through the entrance hole. You wait until late in the evening when the wasps are all home and are relatively quiet. If the nest is hidden in a cavity wall or in the ground, you can dust the hole or the slot which the wasps fly in and out of, with an insect powder. The wasps will then bring the poison into the nest and a few days later it will be dead. Wasps are aggressive towards people who tamper with their nest, so do not linger at the nest when you fight them. The nest need not be removed.

Food Pests
Introduction
An old problem
Competition for food
Pests can ruin stored goods
Why not just eat the insects
Some insects are unhealthy to eat
Allergy to pests
Transmission of infectious diseases
Where do pests come from?
Synanthrope species
(1) The house dust mite and the sugar mite
(2) The firebrat and the silverfish
(3) The German cockroach and the forest cockroach
(4) The rust-red flour beetle and the confused flour beetle
(5) The merchant grain beetle and the saw-toothed grain beetle
(6) The cigarette beetle and the drugstore beetle
(7) The rice weevil and the granary weevil
(8) The pharaoh ant and the common black ant
History of the dark flour beetle
Pests in bird's nests
Mould fauna
The Look and Behaviour of pests
Insect appearance
Internal
Insect development
Insect senses
Behaviour
Water and Moisture
Temperature
What insects live off and live in
The Air
Mites
Bug Indentification
The various species
Mites
The flour mite
The sugar mite
The common house mite
The Lardoglyphus zacheri
The prune mite
The cheese mite
The house dust mite
The Cheyletus eruditus
Silverfish
The Silverfish
The firebrat
Cockroaches
The German cockroach
The Oriental cockroach
The brown-banded cockroach
The American cockroach
The extermination of cockroaches
Crickets
Earwigs
Booklice
Butterflies
The Mediterranean flour moth
The warehouse moth
Tropical warehouse moth
The brown house moth
The Indian meal moth
Grain beetles
The saw-toothed grain beetle
The merchant grain beetle
The rust-red grain beetle
Flour beetles
The yellow mealworm beetle
The lesser mealworm beetle
The dark flour beetle
The confused flour beetle
The rust-red flour beetle
The bolting cloth beetle
Furniture beetles
The drugstore beetle
The cigarette beetle
Bostrychidae
The lesser grain borer
True weevils snout beetles
The granary weevil
The rice weevil
The corn weevil
Bean weevils
The common bean weevil
The coffee bean weevil
Skin beetles
The bacon beetle
The dermestid beetle
The leather beetle
The khapra beetle
The reesa vespulae
Chequered beetles
The red-legged ham beetle
The red-breasted copra beetle
The black-legged ham beetle
Spider beetles
The Australian spider beetle
The white-marked spider beetle
The golden spider beetle
The smooth spider beetle
Plaster beetles
Flies
The common house fly
The lesser house fly
Blowflies
The grey flesh fly
The cheese skipper
Fruit flies
Hymenoptera
The common black ant
The pharaoh ant
Wasps
Birds
The domestic pigeon
The house sparrow
Prevention and control of birds
Rodents
The house mouse
The yellow-necked mouse
Mouse prevention
Mouse control
The brown rat
The black rat
Rat prevention
Rat control
Imaginary pests
Niches of food pests
A: The Waste Niche
B: The seed niche
C: The dead plant niche
D: The sugary excrement niche
E: The carrion niche
Prevention and Control, Integrated Control
A. Inspection of the company and its environment
The environment
The premises
Examination of raw materials and food on site
Sampling
Laboratory methods for detection of pests in food
B. Statement of the problem
C. Prevention and control
1. Proper organisation of the company
2. Proper operation
3. Exclusion, proofing buildings
4. Packaging
5. Non-chemical control measures
6. Chemical control
Resistance
D: Effective monitoring and communication
Appendix
Literature
Extermination with poison
International trade
Colouration of small, pale animals
Index

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