"H" wrote in message
...
And you're confident that you can tell the difference between wasps and
honey bees?

Yup.... Having had my hands in many a bee hive, I think I can recognise
them
by now ;-)


Ok, I'll believe you. So far this year I've seen a lot of honey bees (but
then there is a hive near the back door), quite a few bumble bees and a
couple of queen wasps.

'Cos it strikes me that if some folks are already killing what
they believe to be wasps, then they might actually be killing
beneficial
pollinators - rather daft for gardeners.

Absolutely. However, wasps are also *good* for the garden, cleaning up
plant
pests such as aphids as well as dead wood, and plant matter. So why kill
any
of them if they aren't harming us?


I can't see anything short of a plague of wasps making much impact on dead
wood. Even a large wasps nest when empty weighs just a few ounces.

Can any wasp experts say if wasps have much need for water at present?

Well, according to www.jungleformula.co.uk, the people who do the
anti-midge/wasp stuff, wasps in the UK are out looking for water, meat
and
wood pulp from April to mid August.


Without doubt they're getting started, but I've not found any wasps nests
here yet, and we usually get one or two in the outbuildings, and they start
very small. You'll not get large numbers of wasps for a while yet.

Michael Saunby