The noxious wasp

Image: Nest, Common Wasp. Nelson Provincial Museum Collection: NPM2020.20.1

This beautiful item in our collection is an abandoned nest of the common wasp, one of the most noxious of five species of social wasps which have been accidentally introduced to New Zealand since the 1940s, although all are classed as pests.

With no natural predators, few competitors, mild weather and an abundance of high-quality food wasp numbers have grown explosively, with the top of the South Island providing a home to the world’s highest-known density of wasps.

These voracious hunters eat 1.5-8 kg of insects per hectare of forest each year, have been seen to kill newly hatched birds and consume massive amounts of honeydew, competing with native species and upsetting the food chain. A 2015 study estimates that they cost New Zealand’s economy more than $130m a year in damages to our farming, beekeeping, horticulture and forestry industries.

Fortunately, there is hope. In 2016 Nelson Mail and Stuff.co.nz launched a community campaign to wipe out wasps using an extremely effective wasp bait developed in Nelson called Vespex. With help from the Department of Conservation (DOC), the community, and conservation groups, over $50,000 was raised and a 98% reduction in wasp numbers was achieved. The campaign is spreading nationwide.

If you’d like to be involved in the wasp control operation find out more and/or donate by searching for #WaspWipeout online.