1 68 The Book of Bugs. 



house ventilated. As with the bees also, the fertilized 

 eggs bring forth workers and the unfertilized the drones. 

 1 will tell you of a rough-and-ready way to determine 

 which is a drone wasp and which isn't. Catch one and 

 squeeze it gently in your hand. If you feel a sharp pain 

 it is not a drone, for drones have no sting. After the 

 drone eggs are laid the workers build still larger cells, 

 feed the grubs well, and rear perfect females or queens. 



At the first sign of cold weather no more comb is built, 

 no more eggs are laid, everybody knocks oft" work and 

 goes out for a good time. The house goes to rack and 

 ruin. Who cares? There is honey in the golden-rod, 

 there are swarms of flies and bugs to eat, and rum a- 

 plenty in the rotting fruit on the ground in the orchard. 

 The children in the nest opening their mouths for food 

 whenever the wind rocks the house oh, bother the little 

 brats ! They've made trouble enough. French wasps 

 are said to kill their babies before they go, but American 

 wasps are too tender-hearted for that. They cannot bear 

 the sight of suffering, so they leave and let them starve 

 to death. All the same, the grown wasps have a rattling 

 good time until the frost nips all of them, except the 

 queen that creeps into some cranny and goes to sleep, but 

 not so sound asleep that she cannot sting. One cold night 

 last winter I picked up a piece of gunny sack in the attic, 

 meaning to make some use of it, T forget what, and I am 

 able to assure you that queens do sting in their sleep. 



Solitary wasps have no workers. They are male and 

 female, or, rather, female and male, for the latter is almost 

 superfluous, though the little black carpenter wasp stands 

 guard over the nest while his wife is out hunting, and 

 when she returns helps her put her victims in the nest. 

 It is the female mud and mason wasp, though, that 

 chisels out the mud, singing gleefully all the while as she 



