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It's getting to that time of year when wasp behaviour changes. And as far as most people are concerned, it's a change for the worse. Since wasps don't have that many friends to start with, this is a yet further serious decline in their reputation

I’m rather hoping that 2011 will be a good year for wasps. Unfortunately, my definition of a good year is sometimes at odds with other people’s. For me, a good year is seeing wasps by the bucket load.There is more to this than a perverse I

vulgaris, and the 'German' wasp, Vespula germanica. There's a simple ID guide at BBC Wildlife.

more than his fair share of the frolicking.A dead leaf was twitching on the water’s surface, and gently peeling it up, expecting to see an animated amphibian beneath, revealed, instead, a queen wasp.Whether she had fallen from the ivy-clad fence nearby

by the snow.I regularly find queen wasps curled up, with their wings folded and tucked down underneath their bodies. With metabolism turned down to barely tick-over, they are immobile and can be closely examined (but not picked up) without risk of startling

marble or polished granite.But, as ever, it is the wasps that are making more than their fair share of the humming. And it is also they that are being killed. There are several spider webs amongst the ivy flowers, and some rather fat-looking and obviously

had met a foul end because of their ill-deserved reputation and wholly misunderstood life style.Despite their size and loud buzzing, hornets, Vespa crabro, are the most docile of our social wasps, and also the most secretive. It was a wonder to see

and 1950s, there was a series of sightings of this spectacular insect, which, as time went on, became more frequent.Most black and yellow wasp-like hoverflies bear aphid-eating larvae so beloved of gardeners. Volucella larvae have a much more exotic life

the bathroom light on each night.The notion of bug boxes came back to me recently when I had a quick look through the 'my garden' section of the RSPB's Homes for Wildlife web pages. Under 'homes for insects' it suggests installing or building one. Well, I

Although autumn hangs heavier in the air with each day, it only takes a brief break in the clouds to bring shy wildlife back out into the open. So it was on Friday last week when I headed for the horticultural delights of North Woolwich. Here