Wasps are a rather tiresome topic for many. While bees are currently enjoying a particular increase in sympathy because of their need for protection, wasps still have a reputation for being just a nuisance. They are also valuable beneficial insects for the garden.
Wasps also pollinate flowers
Unforeseen services of the wasp
When they stubbornly join us at the garden table and fight for cake, ice cream and grilled meat, it's easy to complain about wasps. Especially from August onwards, when they are over their ears in the care work for the sexual animals to be raised in the state, they can behave very offensively. When in doubt, i.e. when they feel attacked, they are not shy about stinging. Unlike bees, they can sting multiple times in their lifetime.
Nevertheless, it is advisable to make friends with the animals for a while. Because, first of all, annoying confrontation is not really wise given the danger it can be in a mass community. And secondly, they also provide valuable services in the garden. This includes above all:
- flower pollination
- pest control
Since they pounce so confidently on our pastries and fruit salads in late summer, wasps give many the impression of simply being parasites. However, their main food source is still flower nectar. The adult workers primarily feed on it, and incidentally also on honeydew and sweet plant juices. They are even specialized in certain types of flowers - and these also on the wasps. Biologically, this adaptation of the flowers to the wasps is called sphecophilia.
Flowers that are sphecophilic, i.e. offer the wasps without sucking tools particularly easy access to their nectar, are usually brownish, greenish or white in color and have a shape that is easy for the wasps to reach, for example a pharynx or cone shape. Typical wasp flowers are ivy, figwort and orchid. When collecting nectar, the animals also take on the task of pollination.
In addition to this positive quality, wasps also eat a lot of pests in the garden. In contrast to the adult animals, the larvae need a lot of animal protein to grow. The workers diligently collect caterpillars of various pests, spiders, grasshoppers and aphids, which they chew up and feed to their offspring.