Wasp numbers surge with nests as big as cars
When Nelson woman Barb Amohanga discovered a massive german wasp nest in her garden shed, she didn’t go in for a closer look.
With a daughter who has spent nights at ED after having an anaphylatic reaction to bee stings, Amohanga doesn’t take chances on insects.
After finding the nest a week ago, she shut the door and ran away. Posting a photograph of her find on social media, several locals commented on how striking it was.
“It’s quite artistic looking, but it’s not something I would want to put on the wall,” she said. “I just want it gone.”
Opting not to deal with it herself, Amohanga called in Debug Nelson owner operator Shane Warland, who treated the nest on Wednesday.
It was the third such job he’d done three days, in what has been a boomer year for the insects.
Last week he removed six nests, the week before eight. Warland thinks it’s been the worst year in five years.
“With the hot weather and the not-so-cold winters, there’s just nothing to knock them over,” he said, adding that anyone who found any wasp nests should stay away and call a pest controller.
“They’re nasty, they’re an angry wasp,” he said.
“They can and they have caused deaths. People have died of heart attacks they have been stung so many times.”
Merchento, the company that sells protein-based wasp pesticide Vespex, has had a good year so far for wasp bait sales, with many areas around the country “experiencing significant wasp problems”, according to managing director Richard Toft.
North Auckland, Northland, Whangārei, and the Otago Lakes were particularly affected.
While there were a whole range of factors involved, parts of the country had a particularly warm, dry spring leading up to Christmas.
In terms of german wasps, more overwintering nests were being recorded, leading to “very, very large nests that are basically ready to go”.
“Some of them, they’re already big, so they get to an enormous size with many, many thousands of workers in them,” he said.
Nests could reach “the size of cars”.
Global warming would be playing a role, with the lack of severe winters and the changing weather patterns having an effect, he said.
Vespex was being bought up by councils, conservation groups, beekeepers, and homeowners, particularly those in coastal baches and lifestyle blocks.
In the meantime, scientists are rolling up their sleeves to find new tools in the arsenal to deal with the winged pests.
Department of Conservation science advisor Eric Edwards is part of an international research collaboration attempting to leverage the mating systems of common and german wasps via the use of pheromones or scent communications used to attract males.
At present, they were working to determine the compounds making up the wasp’s pheromone.
Once those were discovered, the team hoped to join mana whenua to look at how the pheromones could be used to disrupt wasp populations by attracting males, or altering the behaviour of males, with the synthesised female sex pheromone.
“It wouldn’t necessarily eradicate them, but it might help reduce mating success,” Edwards said.
He was also researching whether a single line of Vespex bait stations on a track, such as on the Abel Tasman coastal route, might also benefit nature as well as people.
Wasps caused health events, impacted people’s access to recreation and tourism, and adversely affected beekeeping and forestry operations, Edwards said.
People can donate to the Wasp Wipeout project by visiting: https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/wasp-wipeout-summer-20242025
By Warren Gamble, Nelson Mail
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