Gall wasp

[daveO]

I found this wasp crawling around my desk yesterday

I had a look around to see where it had come from and found this marble gall on my shelf that had obviously just hatched. I'd put it on there months ago after finding it on the ground and never thought the grub would still be alive in there.

 

[Toddy]

Brilliant excellent to catch a photo like that

I had a few tiny oak ones hatch out in a polybag I had taken the galls in to a demo; thankfully Russ spotted it and the bag was opened to let them escape. Never thought to get a photo though

cheers,
M

 

[Toddy]

Dave ? would you give me permission to print that photo out to put beside my stuff on oak galls and tannins and dyes ?
I'll put your name on it with the C symbol.

cheers,
M

 

[British Red]

Awesome photos Dave - very interesting

 

[daveO]

Dave ? would you give me permission to print that photo out to put beside my stuff on oak galls and tannins and dyes ?
I'll put your name on it with the C symbol.

cheers,
M

Yeah go ahead, no need to watermark. I'm intrigued about the link to tannins and dyes though.

 

[Toddy]

Ehm, I do a lot of natural dyeing.....I have a very much unused website, all that's on it are a few photos, but if you have a looksee the ones of hoops of coloured wools...those are all natural dyes.

Oak galls are a brilliantly accessible source of tannin, much easier than trying to break up oak bark, just pound them in a mortar. Tannin helps fix some dyes

http://www.seamstimeless.co.uk.

I demonstrate this stuff and I put up sheets of images of plants and colours, and among them are ones of oak galls. The wee wasp one just kind of fits

Thank you for the permission it's much appreciated.

cheers,
M

 

[daveO]

Thanks for the info. Let me know if you need the picture in a bigger size or anything.

 

[Toddy]

Thank you I'll ask HWMBLT to print it out postcard size and we'll see how it looks. That size fits into the poly pocket hanging things really well.

Cheers,
M

 

[Dave Budd]

i often wondered what they looked like I have lots of galls in my woods, but never spotted the beast inside. How big is it?

 

[Harvestman]

If you want a latin name for that wonderful little wasp, it is Andricus kollarii, the marble gall wasp. Beautiful picture.

 

[Toddy]

Thanks Mike
I've been googling and it's an interesting read about these beasties. Not native apparantly, introduced c1830, and British galls are only about 30% as rich in tannin as those from further south. I did wonder why some medieval ink recipes didn't quite work and needed a lot more galls added to the mix.

cheers,
M

 

[Dave Budd]

I wonder about the knopper galls then? Because I have a lot of turkey oak in my woods, the nasty knopper gall wasp sets up everywhere and I could gather the galls by the barrow load, let alone the bucket! According to wikiwotsits, the turkey oak was introduced in 1735 but the gall wasp was only found in the 1950/1960's. The biggest problem with these galls is that they prevent fertile acorns (the wasp replaces the acorns rather than growing on leaves/stems like the marbles) and they hybridise with the English oak easily

 

[ozzy1977]

Great pics, thanks for sharing.

 

[Toddy]

Dave, if you're pretty thorough about removing the galls at the right point in their growth cycle, you can totally decimate the wasp population.
In the 1800's there were huge debate by folks concerned that the loss of acorns would decrease the feeding for pannage right holders.

cheers,
M

 

[brancho]

A couple of great shots thats very interesting.

 

[Dave Budd]

Toddy, any suggestions on how I can do that? Most of them are in the canopy of course! O would just gathering as many up from the floor in the autumn wok?

 

[Toddy]

The Victorians sent wee boys up ladders to clamber through the trees. Paid them by the bucket load

Honestly, any that you destroy means there are less to breed more of them.
If they come down intact, just destroy those before they hatch.
Do they come down with the ordinary acorns ?

cheers,
M

 

[British Red]

, you can totally decimate the wasp population.

cheers,
M

I would expect a better phrase from an archaeologist

 

[JonathanD]

I've often had this argument with myself. To 'decimate' used to mean to 'reduce by 10%', but its use in recent times has evolved and altered the meaning to 'totally destroy'. Fascinating watching the English language evolve. I can't say get corrupted as it has always been changing.

 

[Dave Budd]

to be honest, there are precious few acorns anywhere in my place, the blooming gall wasps have knackered the lot! Mostly the galls come down with a leaf or two attached. The turkey acorns do come down un-galled, but they are still turkey oaks and no use to man nor beast. I've neve managed to harvest any of my English oak acorns but I do occasionally find caches courtesy of the squirrels