Wasp rot?

Had a little potter yesterday:

• Mowed the lawn;
• Finished a bit path edging.

At the start of the Summer, the new paths were 95% finished; just the very last bits of edging to do. But.... I didn't actually get on & do it til just now... & I only did it just now cos I just blasted over the edging strip with the mower & shredded the soggy end.... oops. & it would appear that hubby has been carefully mowing around my unfinished edging all Summer... double oops :/

So, overdue jobs done & I'm packing up. I pick up my drink to find it has gained a swimmer: it's a wasp & this fella is not in good shape. Whilst his stroke is a standard vigorous 6 legged crawl, I can't help but notice he's a bit, erm, mouldy. He looks like he's got mildew on his back & thorax.

Everything in its right place

Now I'm not the biggest fan of wasps but, as Chris Packham pointed out in Saturday's Guardian Magazine, they have a job to do: they're insect predators & are part of the team that keep the aphids & grubs at bay around the garden.

A healthy Common Wasp (pic from Wiki)

But this year has been veeeery quiet on the waspy front. Normally we're regularly evicting them from the living room by now, but I can count on one hand how many I've seen this year. Very odd...

So what's going on? I wondered if the bonkers weather has been a factor: sooo much rain, & so little sun that two of my mates have been diagnosed with Vitamin D deficiency :/

But could this mould be indicative of another problem? & is it related to the much discussed crash in the bee population?

Bio-hazards

A few Google searches dredge up nothing recent about wasp numbers - it's all about pest control & removing them from your roof... yep, guilty as charged: we had to do this last year cos we could hear them chewing away in the bathroom ceiling, & the last thing you need when you're busting is to open the door to a loo full of wasps...

Digging further, I did find a little something on diseases affecting wasps: a 2002 paper from Lincoln University in New Zealand talking about potential fungal controls on the influx of Common & German wasps that are causing problems in the ecosystems down there. They don't belong & they're getting out of hand.

I just wanna get along

They do belong here tho' - they have their place in the order: they predate stuff, stuff predates them, the balance is kept. However, given the public's anti-waspism, is it possible these fungal controls being used here in the UK? or had my swimmer just picked up one of these diseases in the natural course of going about it's waspy business? Just a normal part of what the Common wasp has to deal with here in the UK?

Dunno, but if the jaspers are struggling in the UK, along with the bees, maybe it's time to reassess our relationship with the little stripy guys.