Saturday Morning With Jack Tame

The Vespula group of invasive wasps are still active, but starting to show signs of slowly shutting up shop for the winter. Vespula germanica (German wasp) and Vespula vulgaris (common wasp) are the two species with no sense of humour in New Zealand.   At this time of the year the action is all about the queens: the old queens (as well as the males and old workers) are facing the end of their lives, and the brand-new queens are preparing for hibernation.   For new queens that means mating in May – after that she can find a nice spot to hibernate till mid-September. I usually find them in stored firewood, nice dark nooks and crannies.    This is also the time when most active wasp nests die – early winter. Most, but not all!   Some nests (around 5-10%) survive the winter and grow bigger and bigger during the following year – a couple of meters in size with a million cells. Now, that is a decent method of production of babies and adults.   A nest that survives the winter has the ad