German wasp nest part 2
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- This video was taken a few days after part 1 and shows me trying to locate the queen that escaped on my first try. As you can see the workers have been busy trying to rebuild the nest. So far they have only started with the envelope that normally surrounds the comb. Social wasps like the German (Vespula germanica) and common wasp (Vespula vulgaris) are invasive to NZ. My research at Landcare Research is on the potential use of biological control to lower wasp populations without the use of chemicals.
Again, I have many years of experience and use specialized equipment to do this and still get the odd sting, so please don't try to dig an active nest yourself!
If you would like to contact me about my research, I can be reached at: brownb@landcareresearch.co.nz
so when you are done at the nest how do you get rid of them and get into your car? or do you just spend your life in that suit. no going back after the first nest
lol
If " invasive to NZ", chemicals are a good thing.
Would it harm them too much if you would vacuum them up (without that soapy water they use to remove a nest from a house or something like that and terminate them) so you can take them with you without having to deal with all this?
What do you do with the wasps after the nest is gone?
There's an invention called dynamite. I do admit this is fascinating, but for someone who's highly allergic to bees and such, I'd use the dynamite or a flame thrower if the land isn't too dry.
" I'm not removing the nest to kill it. I need to keep the nest alive for my survey for parasites (like mites, fungus, etc.). Some nests will be re-housed into nest boxes for use in behaviour assays. " Thats part of the description of the first video. that would not realy work with burned wasps, would it?
I would bring a vacuum so that I could cull some of that swarm. Even though you are protected, it would be easier to work without them all banging into you continuously. Plus, if you are anywhere near other people, or animals, these angry boys might go do some damage to bystanders.
why were comments disabled on part 1?
Same thought.
i think a wasp scientist wouldnt be fond of all the low-effort "burn it with fire" comments it was probably getting
Bob Brown--I swear on GOD'S name.(don't know anything else to "Swear-On") The first 30 seconds of your 1st. video. Before, I had read ANYTHING about you, I said to myself:"Now here's a guy who came prepared, & knows what he is doing!" I was really rather impressed by your video. Especially, compared to ALL the others. That's why I went looking for who was in a great suit. I am going to find out what your up to.
why didny you box the next on site and leave it there for a couple of days queen and workers would likely have migrated to the box then you could have covered entrance an removed the entire nest
Wheres part three??
Did you find the queen this time?
No wonder they were angry they were just about to sit down for tea !!
Set nest in a box and leave. Come back in a day or 2 and the queen pluss all the workers will be captured
Very cool
Haha, destroy those wasps. You should have vacuumed up the suckers then soaked the nest in petrol and set light to it!
What do you do if you find the queen? Does she not fly? Also by biological control I'm guessing you mean natural predators, or a parasite etc. These things don't always go so well, I'm sure you know '',:^) I'm curious how you guys do testing for that kind of thing, to make sure it doesn't backfire.
+Laura Peters Agreed Laura, surely the Queen just flies off?
No - the queen does not fly. The workers keep chewing the tips of her wings so she CAN'T fly off.
+messybluesboy371 hahah why do they do that?!
BECAUSE they don't want their MOMMA to leave them! It's their instinct
And not to mention that the founding queen will have an extremely swollen abdomen... she transforms once she is nestbound and the workers take over foraging, she will not leave the nest again.
Fire, a lot of fire
I don't get it, how do invasive wasps come to New Zealand? Did someone bring them on a boat or something?
German wasps arrived in New Zealand and Australia in crate of aircraft parts from World War 2, in 1945
Makes my cheeks sore😞
Well don't sit on them next time.
HAHA
Sorry for that, from Germany :D
4.2x12x12=xyz ♻️ 9/12 1660
This is distressing. The fact that you are leaving so many of them free to rebuild is disgusting. My son and his friend were attacked by them a couple of years ago, and when I rang council they came out immediately to destroy the nest. The guy told me that in one average sized park in Miramar, Wellington, he'd had 8 nests in one day to destroy. These things are not welcome here. You should have killed any that remained.
Snowflake alert.
Did you read the description? He’s researching them in order to find a natural way to wipe them out... killing one nest doesn’t do anything to the population of these things. Since it’d be impossible to track down every single nest of this invasive species, they are taking these ones alive to figure out how to develop something they can introduce that will wipe them out. So would you rather him kill this nest so you can get stung by another one in a week? Or figure out a way to wipe them out all across NZ?
If I wanted to tackle non-native species in New Zealand, I'd tackle something bigger like the possum, which does real damage rather than a wasp, however well it can defend itself.
The wasps do more damage than you'd think. They are predators and will hunt and kill native insects which don't have defenses against them.