Have you seen wasps busily gnawing on wooden fence posts or your wooden garden furniture? Correctly seen. In fact, the animals eat the wood with their mouthparts. But do they actually do it for culinary reasons?
Wasps often nibble on wood
Why wasps gnaw wood
Wasps have very powerful mouthparts. That much is clear. Anyone who has ever seen a wasp in close-up will be able to confirm this. Above all, the mandibles, the upper jaw, can be seen very clearly here. It is easy to imagine that they can use it to shred prey and hard materials without any problems.
But is wood one of the favorite foods of wasps? The answer is of course no, because it is not nutritious. For their own energy needs and those of their larvae, wasps only need sweet and protein-rich food in the form of flower nectar, plant juices, honeydew, insects - and they also like cake, ice cream and grilled meat from our garden tables.
So one thing is certain:
- Wasps feed exclusively on sweet and protein-rich food
- Wood is not on the menu
wood as a building material
The animals also ingest wood orally, but they only collect it as building material for their nests. Mixed with their saliva, they chew it up into a mass which they form into the brood chambers and which becomes very hard as it dries.
Depending on the wasp species, different wood textures are preferred: Common wasps stick to rotten wood, which gives their nests a beige color. German wasps, on the other hand, gnaw at the semi-weathered surfaces of wooden posts and furniture, making their nests appear greyish.
Does furniture get damaged?
Now you may be wondering whether your wooden furniture on the terrace needs special protection against wasps. Since they only use partially weathered wood for their nest anyway, signs of gnawing are more likely to show up on older furniture anyway. In order to avoid unsightly grazing marks, preventive measures must be taken at an early stage - for example by applying a wood preservative varnish to tables and chairs. This prevents the surface from weathering and also seals the fibers on top into a harder layer.
What can also help in the shorter term is rubbing essential oils into the furniture. The smell deters the wasps.