Hornets Versus Median Wasps In Aerial Fight

Occurred on July 15, 2022 / Dohr, Germany

Info from Licensor: "Last summer I also spent time observing, photographing and filming social wasps in my garden in Dohr (in the Eifel region) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. I spent hundreds of hours observing and arranging until the animals got used to me (and I got used to them) and then I managed to take some extraordinary pictures.

Honey bees, wasps, field wasps and hornets gather at a drinking trough filled with water or sugar water and enjoy drinking the energizing liquid. Especially in the fall, when the insect colonies are slowly approaching their annual end and the last workers have already hatched, various species gather here.
The largest and dominant species is the hornet. It then drives away the other animals present with targeted bites in order to take the coveted liquid in peace. I was able to capture these sometimes quite spectacular scenes on video in tenfold slow motion.

With its mouthparts wide open, the hornet approaches and deliberately bites at the smaller wasps, throwing them into the air and chasing them away in its typical frightened posture with raised front legs. The wasps then leave the feast in panic. Once I was even able to capture a video of the hornet chasing a wasp and catching it in the air, but then pushing it away again. Although hornets are much larger than their smaller relatives, they still have a lot of respect for their sting and venom.

Both species are skilled fliers and perform spectacular flight maneuvers that are only really perceptible to us humans in slow motion."