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Red Wasp Eyes - _TNY_7973

This shot of a couple of unusually dark median wasps (Dolichovespula media) is actually rotated 180 degrees. They had built a nest underneath a wall-mounted bench on my mother-in-law's patio (making the patio pretty much unusable) so I inched closer and managed a couple of shots of them without them becoming agitated. Since I had the MP-E65 mm lens on the camera, the front glass was 10.1 cm / 4" from the wasps (and the diffusor even closer), but they did nothing towards me.

 

The median wasp, sometimes known as the French wasp in the UK is the largest eusocial wasp in Sweden not counting the European hornet - in Germany it is actually sometimes known as "Kleine Hornisse" - "small hornet" even if it doesn't belong to Vespa like true hornets.

 

Unfortunately, the wasp nest had to be removed as my MIL did want to be able to be outside on the patio this summer.

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Uploaded on July 10, 2024
Taken on July 1, 2024