DizzyDaff
New Member
Had several of these show up this year on my hollyhock plants - talk about freaking you out!!! Reach for a bloom & put your hand on one of these big monsters!! E-yow!! 
Great Black Wasp Apparently, they had been feeding well as most of the ones we saw were at least 1.5 inches, some larger. Wish I had taken a few pics of them - maybe this year.
Katydid Killer Wasp - we left them alone as DH knew exactly what they were, from growing up in AZ, but we had never seen them here - zone 5a, over 5,500 ft above sea level.
Don't know why they were attracted to the hollyhock stalks
- not the flowers, just the stalks (might've been easy to hang onto since the stems are hairy).
hmmm.... I'm betting they eat Mormon crickets?? as they are katydids, not crickets at all. That would help explain why these wasps were SO HUGE! Now those bugs are some nasty pests!!! 
Great Black Wasp Apparently, they had been feeding well as most of the ones we saw were at least 1.5 inches, some larger. Wish I had taken a few pics of them - maybe this year.
Katydid Killer Wasp - we left them alone as DH knew exactly what they were, from growing up in AZ, but we had never seen them here - zone 5a, over 5,500 ft above sea level.
Don't know why they were attracted to the hollyhock stalks
- not the flowers, just the stalks (might've been easy to hang onto since the stems are hairy). hmmm.... I'm betting they eat Mormon crickets??
as they are katydids, not crickets at all. That would help explain why these wasps were SO HUGE! Now those bugs are some nasty pests!!! 
