Topic author: The Spotlight Kid
Subject: wasps and flies
Posted on: 18 Sep 2006 20:07:07
Message:

I've got a customer who has had flies and waps in her chimney for the last three years. In the fireplace is a sealed solid fuel burner with glass door. Each year in about July she gets these flies coming out of the fire. They are dark and small like fruit flies but slightly different. They have a small but prominent head with antenae that stick out at right angles. Their wings are longer than their bodies and rounded at the ends and rest overlapping along body.
The wasps are also coming down the chimney and both wasps and flies are still there in numbers now. The chimney has a liner flue and a spinner on the top of the stack which the wasps have to negotiate to get in. When I spoke to her on the phone I thought they might have been honey bees but they are definetly wasps. What puzzles me is why are wasps going to so much trouble to nest in the same place each year, and are the flies somehow there as a result of the wasp nests ?
I would also like to ID the flies which might provide a clue to the mystery.