AUTUMN JOYS FOR OUT OF WORK WORKER WASPS

Last chance saloon for worker wasps.  Nectaring on ivy flowers

Photo: Marianne Mogendorff 

And chomping on fallen apples.

Scissoring off fragments to guzzle.

Then joined by a sister.

Obviously on good terms with each other and I think you can see them interacting and communicating through their antennae.

And why were all these wasps crawling about beneath this willow.

Then I noticed black colonies of aphids on the willow shoots.   So the wasps were presumably enjoying the honeydew that the aphids produce, although they didn't seem to be milking the aphids like ants do.   They were just fossicking around trying to find any honeydew residues.

I searched the internet and discovered that these are Large Willow Bark Aphids (Tuberolachnus salignus) and regular visitors to willows.  Autumn is their peak season and they survive through the winter.  Mysteriously they all disappear -  usually in February.  Nobody knows where they go but they reappear in late spring.  

Apparently they do no harm to the willows and provide a food source for numerous other insects and small birds - not to mention wasps.

RHS page link