We hope you are surviving Lockdown, and all the challenges and worries it brings with it.
Last year, wasp-love swept the nation again like we’d never have predicted! We were overwhelmed with the enthusiasm for wasps, and we are still sorting and identify all of your little packets of wasps.
We have been busy working out how the Big Wasp Survey can function in a COVID19 world. Like last year we are inviting previous participants to take part and we think that the sampling itself should be relatively unaffected, because it is done in your back garden.
However, we can not accommodate receiving and sorting the masses of insects you will catch this year, as there is too much uncertainty about whether the university labs will be open and able to receive your samples, and whether there will be the student body to help sort them. It is also unlikely that we will be able to run the public workshops, which have helped identify the bulk of the samples each year, due to ongoing social distancing regulations.
The solution is that you – the samplers – will be asked to sort and identify the wasps yourselves at home and have prepared a set of video resources to help.
We apologise to those of you who would like to take part but don’t receive an invitation. We hope you understand that we need to sample only what is needed and keep everyone safe. Please do continue to spread the #wasplove – and look out for our call for wider participation in future years of the Big Wasp Survey!
