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: The Enemy of My Enemy
There is a two story entryway to our front porch and up at the top of it this year there is a very large football shaped paper wasp nest. It might be Dolichovespula arenaria, but I'm not certain at this point. The nest is so high that the wasps come and go without getting near us, so they are no problem. More interesting, they have proven beneficial in several ways.
For one, they are carniverous and as soon as aphids or other pests show up on the plants, the wasps clean them off. For another, we have had a lot of nests of the European paper wasp all over the place in the last few years, to the point that they were really causing problems. And there were quite a few ground-dwellng yellowjackets that were quite annoying if we happened to step in a nest. The wasps from the big nest are so territorial that they've kept the other species out of the area.
I won't say "our" nest won't get to be a problem at the end of the season when they might start getting into fruit, but for now their one nest is a lot easier to take than dozens of other species that have been "run out of town".
There is a two story entryway to our front porch and up at the top of it this year there is a very large football shaped paper wasp nest. It might be Dolichovespula arenaria, but I'm not certain at this point. The nest is so high that the wasps come and go without getting near us, so they are no problem. More interesting, they have proven beneficial in several ways.
For one, they are carniverous and as soon as aphids or other pests show up on the plants, the wasps clean them off. For another, we have had a lot of nests of the European paper wasp all over the place in the last few years, to the point that they were really causing problems. And there were quite a few ground-dwellng yellowjackets that were quite annoying if we happened to step in a nest. The wasps from the big nest are so territorial that they've kept the other species out of the area.
I won't say "our" nest won't get to be a problem at the end of the season when they might start getting into fruit, but for now their one nest is a lot easier to take than dozens of other species that have been "run out of town".