A selection of some of the most common wasps to be found in the UK
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A brief description of Social Wasps: Live in annual colonies, each started by a queen, who lays all the eggs. The colony inhabits a nest built with paper made by chewing up wood fragments. A mature nest may contain several thousand six-sided cells in which the grubs are reared. Nearly all the wasps in the nest are workers, smaller than the queen, but otherwise very similar. They collect food and building materials and do all the work in the nest. Adults eat nectar, fruit, and other sweet things, but the grubs are reared on animal food - especially other insects. Workers are on the wing from late spring until the first frosts. Males, identified by the long antennae, occur only in late summer, when they mate with the new queens. Colonies break up in the autumn, and only newly-mated queens survive the winter, hibernating in sheltered places, emerging in spring. Apart from the hornet, all UK species are black and yellow. They fold their wings lengthways along the sides of the body at rest. All wasps can sting, apart from the males, but do not usually attack unless annoyed.
