Wasps and Slugs.

I have been sitting out the back most of the night havin the beers and the laughs, wifey points out the large amonut of slugs around and in a 6ft radius of our seat i count 22, i follow this up with how many wasps have ya seen this year, none is the answer oh wait i saw one in bray. We had 2 active wasps nests in our soffit they are both dorment this year without chemical help. Is it weather or just a downturn in one and upturn in de other.

john

Wasps and bees are having a bad year with the weather. Also bees and wasps are slowly on the decline each year for the past ten or more years. I think they will become even more rare each year unless we change the way we grow our foods (more so how we spray our foods and crops).

I haven't seen many wasps, but our garden is full of both bees and slugs. Apparently the honeysuckle and lavender plants are what they need.
Cillian

I am in doubt that the Pesticides are having the dramatic effect as is being touted, there are many other factors that need to be looked into, namely shifting Weather patterns, the last two severe and elongated cold spells put paid to many Wasps etc, the Wasp has a type of anti-freeze within their Thorax which allows them a one time re-freeze after dormancy, if this happens twice, the Wasp will not recover and will perish. Flying insects suffer badly if subjected to Rain and fluctuating temperatures, the added weight depletes the energy required for flight and also reduces the function of nectaries in Flowering plants, none of these factors are directly related to the impact of Man and this is cyclical, it also flushes defective Genes from the environment, it causes evolution of the species, those insects bigger, more thermodynamically controlled, improved wing structure leads to a stronger Gene pool.

Wasp nests are on the whole, constructed out of masticated Wood pulp which requires a low moisture content to allow it to function properly, damp weather reduces it's efficacy and if the Adults are unable to fly to retrieve grubs, pupae and other food sources, their own Larvae will die.

Wasps appear to have cycles where they are one year, abundant and the next year, greatly reduced.

Here is a Link from last year to show that the polulations fluctuate from Year to Year.
www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/countryside/87...ter-warm-spring.html

Slugs and Snails are in a better situation because Food is all around them and in periods of dessicating Weather, they only need to retreat to the lower Soil levels to live through Droughts etc.

The reason why Honey Bees are on decline is indirectly due to to causes, One, the Pesticide issue

www.naturalnews.com/027299_bees_pesticides_honey.html

and 2, the Parasite/Virus problem... www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-...g-insects-blood.html

Kev.

Well if i were to find 20 or more differint types of pesticides in my body I would be worried hmm.. I be worried if iwas to find even one. This is what is been found on our dead bees. Their are Irish bee keepers that have left their swarms of bees on farmers lands. To find when they come back in six months time they are 90% dead. Then other bee keepers have left their bees in city's to find that 95% or more live year in year out, and are thriving.

I have talked to 3 bee keepers in the past six months and another retired bee keeper, we put most likely cause is pesticides. What is happening is we believe is they can't remember how to get home. The bees are bringing home infected pollen Turned into honey, queen and young eat it past down to generation to generation and is a ticking time bomb in the hive.

Their was a good rte program aired about bee keeping but was very short, might have been nation wide can't remember.
Bbc have done one also which is worth watching if you can find it.

Ya their are a lot of things that are up in the air in what's causing all the death. But when you look at australia who are mostly untouched then we have to ask what are we doing wrong that is killing our bees.

Sorry but you weren't being specific, the poster stipulated WASPS and SLUGS , that's why my reply specified same, I specifically included the links to Wasps And Bees to give one contradiction to the fate of Wasps and the second to support your ideas about Bees.
When you think of it, there are more things to worry about like Monosodium Glutamate, Aspartame, asculfame, bisphenol. ( a form of synthetic oestrogen ) contained on thermal printing paper the type you get in Till receipts and the lining in Tins and Aluminium Cans.So I'd be more concerned about that than the odd wayward pesticide, there are poisons in your drinking Water like Fluoride and Chlorine.

Kev.

Edit

Nm my post above.

Ta
Steve

patronising
www.thefreedictionary.com/patronising