The Big Wasp Survey

We know surprisingly little about social wasps. The Big Wasp Survey harnesses the public’s dislike of social wasps to get their help sampling wasp populations across the UK. These data help answer questions about the distribution and abundance of social wasps across the UK.

We may hate wasps but they’re useful predators, controlling garden pests and pollinating flowers. We know bees are threatened by anthropogenic impact; but what about wasps? Wasps are likely to be equally affected by chemicals and land-use change. The Big Wasp Survey uses beer and UK citizens to find out more about these important, but much maligned, insects.

The Big Wasp Survey is the first of its kind in the UK. We ask members of the public to recycle an old plastic bottle and use a little beer to make a wasp trap for their back garden. After a week, once the wasps are trapped, you simply identify them using resources that we provide, and enter the results.

Very little is known about the abundance and diversity of wasps in the UK and it’s hoped this survey will give scientists valuable information.

What are you waiting for? Upcycle your water bottle, share a beer with it, and hang it in your garden!

The project is in collaboration with Prof Adam Hart (University of Gloucestershire), in conjunction with BBC’s Countryfile, and sponsored by the Royal Entomological Society.

More information on how to take part: bigwaspsurvey.org

Publications from the Big Wasp Survey

• Sumner, S., Bevan, P., Hart, A.G. and Isaac, N.J.B. (2019) Mapping species distributions in 2 weeks using citizen science. Insect Conservation and Diversity, 12: 382–388. https://doi.org/10.1111/icad.12345
• Perry, J.R., Sumner, S., Thompson, C. and Hart, A.G. (2021) ‘Citizen identification’: online learning supports highly accurate species identification for insect-focussed citizen science. Insect Conservation and Diversity, 14: 862–867. https://doi.org/10.1111/icad.12528
• Cunningham-Eurich, I., Kontou, D., Yordanova, M., Maeda-Obregon, A., Favreau, E., Wang, J. et al. (2023) Using citizen science data to assess the population genetic structure of the common yellowjacket wasp, Vespula vulgaris. Insect Molecular Biology, 32(6), 634–647. https://doi.org/10.1111/imb.12862

Download our flyer and our full report.