Some weeks back I wrote that a visiting Hornet Vespa crabro seemed to have succeeded in driving away the two Median Wasps Dolichovespula media that had been coming to some stinky old Mango Chutney I was using as a "lure"(see Big and Beautiful - The Hornet for details).

I needn’t have worried, because within a few minutes of replacing the old chutney (which had been rain-watered down below a level it would be acceptable even for homeopathy treatment) with a table-spoonful of fresh the wasps were back - and they’d brought some friends (a few of whom seemed to be less "friendly" than the others!). How they arrived so quickly is a mystery to me because they don’t seem to have a nest in the garden so presumably weren’t "watching" for the food source to return - perhaps chutney aroma molecules just carry on the wind more effectively then I realise!

What strikes me about the above photos is how amazingly variable these wasps seem to be. If I was using the same criteria I do as a birder brought up to look for ever-smaller differences in closely-related species I’d be thinking that there had to be at least three species here (based on the variable amounts of yellow banding on the abdomen, and the absent/present red colouring on the head and thorax).

The hornet-like individual in the two photos below only seem to emphasise how different individual Median Wasps can be.

Sadly I haven’t seen the Hornet again: hopefully she didn’t just waddle off somewhere so full of fermenting chutney that she just lay down until she exploded in a shower of chitin, rotting mangoes, and carbon dioxide…