Flying Paper Wasp and Black Carpenter Ant Holiday Postcard

Wasps and ants are distant relatives but don't get along too well! The ant has discovered sugar water in our hummingbird feeder and before long she invited all her friends to dine (they're on the way). Unfortunately, the feeder was already being used by paper wasps (this silhouette is a northern paper wasp, a species often found in Quebec Canada). The hummingbirds didn't care for the feeder and seem a little insulted by it. There are flowers for them anyway. We have wasps every year in our garden. This year, we have three types of paper wasp (European, Northern and Brown), the omnipresent yellowjackets, and big black parasitic wasps and a lot of little ones who look for insect prey by crawling into holes in wood. Wasps are amazing animals, and it's a shame so many people are afraid of them. In fact wasps never sting unless they feel threatened, for instance if you gesture frantically at them and yell, or try to eat them (ie check your food and drinks, especially sweet ones!). I was stung in the mouth a couple of times before I learned the basic rules of getting along with wasps. As well as uncanny geometic nest-building capacities, paper wasps especially have face recognition skills and these intelligent insects, like the ants, have a complex social network. They help control undesirable bugs such as aphids and other nasty garden pests. Original photo by M Sylvia Chaume, Quebec, Canada.