German Wasp
13th March 2010, SaturdayWhile replacing some of the damaged boarding on the outside of the hide at Castle Water yesterday several hibernating queen German Wasps were found. The id features to seperate German and Common Wasp can be variable so several have to be checked. German Wasps normally have three dots on the face (clypeus) but this one has two dots and a longer vertical mark, this is similar in some ways to that found on the Common Wasp. Another feature to look for is a bulge in the middle of the yellow stripes on the pronotum, this is shown in the fourth picture below. German Wasps aslo have an unbroken yellow band behind the eye.
Face (clypeus) showing two dots and longer vertical mark
Pronotum showing bulge in yellow stripe.