"Dave Poole" wrote in message
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This morning, while yanking out some ground elder, I suddenly became
aware that I was surrounded by small wasps. Body shape was more or
less typical of our native English wasp, but it was approximately a
quarter to a third smaller. The body colour was predominantly black
with bright yellow bands without the typical vee-formation along the
dorsal surface of the abdomen. The antennae were matt reddish brown
and slightly lighter at the tips as opposed to the glossy black of
both European and English wasps.

Compared to the common wasps, they are very nervous and fly away at
the slightest movement. As with common wasps, they were carrying out
typical hunting manoeuvers, carefully searching for small insects and
larvae amongst the foliage. They seem to exhibit social behaviour as
with common wasps, but appear totally non-aggressive. In a way they
seem quite charming little things. Any ideas - please? I'm quite
familiar with the 'false wasps' so I can't see them being any of the
hover flies or similar.


If it were not for the behaviour description, I'd say your description of
the physical appearance was reminiscent of the yellow nomad bee, nomada
flava, or one of the other 20 or so related species, some of which are also
black/yellow.

Anothr possibility might be the slender bodied digger wasp, crabro
cribrarius, perhaps, although that is almost as large as most common wasps?