Garden visitors

You might recall my posting of December 12, 2011 titled "I hope they're friendly wasps".  Well, patience has paid off, and at least one of the little rose-gall wasps has emerged.  I was surprised at how small the little guy was, not any bigger than a medium sized ant.  A quick review of the literature re-affirmed their small size -- 3 to 4 millimeters.  Here's some photos that I took today; click on the photos to enlarge them.

Update of July 4, 2012:     Today was house-cleaning day --  I removed two old rose-galls from my Rosa glauca.  About half a dozen new ones are currently being formed, and I'll probably remove all but two later on to repeat the cycle for next year.  The old galls were surprisingly tough and solid, and required the use of my rose pruners to slice them open.  Here's a photo of one of them: