- Unusually damp and chilly springtime conditions have resulted in minimal wasp activity.
This year, wasps are scarce during summer. Berthold Langenhorst, representing the Nature Conservation Union Nabu in Wetzlar, explains, "Usually by mid-August, we'd be swarming with wasps, but it's been surprisingly quiet this year. The weather's to blame." During the critical period in spring when new queens create colonies and construct their first combs, excess moisture and chill made conditions inhospitable.
Mold spores infected the combs, causing wreckage to the offspring, making it impossible for worker bees to emerge and aid the queen in expanding the colony, gathering food, feeding the brood, and preventing mold spread. Consequently, numerous young queens perished. "We're seeing fewer wasp nests than usual," Langenhorst informs.
From mid-August onward, worker bees start searching for sugar in sweet items like cakes, beverages, jellies, or sodas.
Once the first worker bees emerge after roughly one to two weeks in the spring, the queen retreats to her nest and focuses solely on laying eggs. Worker bees are essentially redundant come mid-August and must survive by consuming sugar-rich foods.
Meanwhile, new queens and males emerge within the nests, ultimately mating. Only the young queens survive autumn, seeking refuge in hibernation spots like earth burrows.
Next year could present a completely different scenario, as Langenhorst predicts, "It all depends on spring. If conditions are favorable for the new queens, we'll likely see an increase in wasps again."
Despite the usual increase in wasp activity by mid-August, Berthold Langenhorst observed a significant decrease this year. Mold spores, likely due to the excess moisture and chill during spring, significantly impacted the wasp offspring, resulting in fewer wasp nests than usual.
