Occurred on August 5, 2019 / 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.

They also like to eat animal proteins to feed their larvae. They normally catch other insects in the wild, but they also go for carrion and meat and like to steal ham and sausage from the plate on the table. With their sharp, powerful mouthparts, the mandibles, they cut off small pieces and fly them to the nest.

There are also fights, jostles, flying accidents and battles at the feeding sites and I was able to record some of these scenes with the slow-motion camera."