Yes, it look very autumnal in Finland Here the mornings are getting cold and it is feeling more like the start of autumn every day.
Are you still catching tachinids there? Last weekend was very poor in Dorset but I hope to get something when I go out this afternoon to a few nature reserves
I have very little to report from down here - 2 good nature reserves visited and the only tachs I can report were lots of Tachina fera and Siphona cf geniculata plus a few lonely-looking Exorista cf rustica
I am glad it is still summer down near Jorge's malaise trap
Sorry, this is not on Diptera.
Somebody asked me about wasps in my trap.
This is a giant wasp 'Vespa mandarina' captured in my Malaise trap yesterday. Common
This terrible wasp will attack my poor bee hives in autumn, in big number.
"The hornets can devastate a colony of honey bees: a single hornet can kill as many as 40 honey bees per minute thanks to their large mandibles which can quickly strike and decapitate a bee"
YouTube Video
Another curious thing on Vespa mandarinia "The toxicity of Vespa mandarinia venom is actually somewhat lower than that of honeybee (Apis mellifera) venom. The median lethal dose (LD50), a dose at which 50% of subjects will die, is 4.1 mg venom per kg body weight (injected in vitro in mice) for Vespa mandarinia and 2.8 mg/kg for honeybee venom. Whereas the honeybee is more toxic, the much larger hornet usually injects a greater quantity of venom, so a hornet sting may be in fact a bit more dangerous. But given the fact, that humans will usually survive several dozen or even hundreds of bee stings without lasting consequences, it becomes evident that claims like "three hornet stings will kill a man" are nonsense. No healthy man dies from only three Vespa mandarinia stings!"
As far as I know, most of the Vespa victims were killed because of allergic shock.
Though 3 times I have been stinged by Vespa hornets, I am ok so far.
Yes, it is just like the video in my bee field.
But I keep Japanese bee, instead of European bee.
They developed a strategy to protect themselves.
As they know how to fight against Hornets, the attack of Vespa mandarina is not that serious.
Syrphids, yes. I keep many. Most of the flies are kept first for my Museum.
By the way, what do you have in the bottle of your Malaise traps, or how do you kill insects in your trap, everyone?
As I set them for long period in same place, it is not possible to pick up insects every day.
I put pure Propylene Glycol in the bottle, as coleopterists do.
Tell me please, what you do to collect flies by Malaise trap in good condition.
I use so called "dry malaise" with poison buttons. It keeps me busy, because You must empty the bottle every day (or every second). Many of the flies are still alive and in very good condition. Just now problematic are the spiders. They live long enough to spread their web arond the flies. After pinning every fly will have a five hours acetone bath to keep colours clear.
I'm at work just now and can't remember the name. They are yellow tablets from Pherobank in Holland. One tablet lasts nearly whole summer in one trap. Some kind of nerve poison that they use with Unitraps with pheromones.
In NA a standard killing agent in Malaise and pheromone traps is DDVP (Dichlorvos). Just a small piece (1 cubic cm) will probably last all season. It is usually dissolved into a hard plastic. It is a bit oily, so place it in a foil or plastic wrapper with minute pin holes to let the gas escape. Should kill insects within 30 minutes.
dhalma wrote:
Sorry, this is not on Diptera.
Somebody asked me about wasps in my trap.
This is a giant wasp 'Vespa mandarina' captured in my Malaise trap yesterday. Common
This terrible wasp will attack my poor bee hives in autumn, in big number.
Apparently they are already active in Southern Europe as well, not only killing bees but also attacking people selling shrimps on fish markets over there. A colleague of mine has a bee-keeping friend in France who has to battle the wasps at times and he will ask him to send us some dead ones. It probably is only a matter of time before the wasps show up here, either in person or in the press as a possible thread to local wild life (including man).
Tony T wrote:
In NA a standard killing agent in Malaise and pheromone traps is DDVP (Dichlorvos). Just a small piece (1 cubic cm) will probably last all season. It is usually dissolved into a hard plastic. It is a bit oily, so place it in a foil or plastic wrapper with minute pin holes to let the gas escape. Should kill insects within 30 minutes.
Thank's Tony. That is just the thing I am using. DDVP was the name
Apparently they are already active in Southern Europe as well, not only killing bees but also attacking people selling shrimps on fish markets over there. A colleague of mine has a bee-keeping friend in France who has to battle the wasps at times and he will ask him to send us some dead ones. It probably is only a matter of time before the wasps show up here, either in person or in the press as a possible thread to local wild life (including man).
Theo Peeters indeed already received several request for information about this species, like from the Ministery of Agriculture......
Here the mornings are getting cold and it is feeling more like the start of autumn every day. 
