Wasps - order Hymenoptera

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Hymenoptera is a large order of insects; the second largest in Ireland with over 3,200 known species, comprising the sawflies, wasps, ants, and including over 100 species of bee.

Like some species of bees and ants, common wasps are social insects and live in colonies that can number upwards of 10,000 individuals during the late-summer peak. Unlike honey bees, wasps have no means of storing food over the winter, so wasp colonies die out in mid-autumn each year, with only the newly mated queens surviving the winter in hibernation.

Ectemnius continuus, more commonly known as a digger wasp, is one of several burrowing, usually solitary wasps of the family Sphecidae that excavate nests in soil which they provision with flies paralyzed by stinging for their larvae to feed on. Mostly found where abundant supplies of dead wood and umbellifer flowers are available. Can often be seen on such flowers in summer, feeding on pollen.