Not so common

I found this wasp in the kitchen and he kindly agreed to a few photos before I let him go.  He is a male common wasp, Vespula vulgaris, and will spend most of his short life flying around looking for females and drinking nectar, so it is not all bad.  Note that he has 13 antennal segments (one more than a female) and seven abdominal segments (again one more than a female).  His antennae are noticeably long, and look more than 1/13 longer than the antennae of a queen.

The abdominal markings of a male Vespula vulgaris are very similar to those of a German wasp, Vespula germanica, but the facial markings are different.  These BWARS charts compare the appearances of queens (♀), males (♂) and workers (☿) of Vespula vulgaris (above) and Vespula germanica (below).

The BWARS website says that a typical Vespula vulgaris nest raises about 10,000 workers, 1000 queens and 1000 males in a season so one might expect to see roughly equal numbers of new queens and males around at the end of the season.  I see many more new queens in the garden than males, which must be something to do with their foraging preferences or other behaviour.  Even though there was already a queen hibernating  in the kitchen a couple of weeks ago there are still plenty of queens flying, and especially foraging on the Kniphophia caulescens, so this male wasp may yet strike lucky.