Where have all the wasps gone this summer?

By Seirian Sumner, Professor of Behavioural Ecology, UCL

Summer can be lovely – until a wasp turns up. Whether they present as an irritating picnic visitor or an uninvited loft guest, common social wasps are as much a part of our summer as festivals, sun cream and the growing despair of how to entertain children who’ve forgotten how to be bored.

But summer 2026 is breaking the norm, and there don’t seem to be many wasps about. As a wasp biologist, I’ve noticed it acutely, because my students need wasps for their experiments, and we simply can’t find them.

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