HABITS AND BIOLOGY OF THE COMMON WASP 325 



per day ; and this, assuming that development proceeds 

 uniformly, is equivalent to the number of eggs (since become 

 larvae) laid per day. This number is 1-384 — a number, as 

 one would expect, practically identical with that obtained from 

 the eggs, since the queen was still the only labourer. From 

 the pupa; no conclusion can be drawn, for since none had 

 hatched, the stage of development which they had reached 

 was indeterminable. 



It may safely be said, on the above reckoning, that, during 

 the period of her solitary work on the nest, the queen lays an 

 average of about 1-38 eggs a day; and that, before any 

 workers have hatched, the queen has built a first cell-flat 

 containing some 44 eggs and juveniles. 



The result is very different at the height of the season's 

 activity. Turn again to the table showing the numbers in 

 our July nest. The eggs belonging to the first, second, and 

 third broods number respectively 1159,288, and 42 — a total 

 of 1489 eggs. Now a definite limit is set to the period 

 during which the eggs were deposited, since hatching 

 takes place after 8 days. So the eggs were laid during 

 8 days, and therefore the average number of eggs laid 



per day during the preceding 8 days was — ;t — = 186. This 



number is well within the limit of the maximum number of 

 eggs deposited in a day ; for it represents the average of 

 8 days, whereas the real number was increasing daily 

 with the addition of new workers and of cells added by 

 them. 



Rates of Cell-building. — The rate of egg-laying during the 

 growth of a nest is dependent in great part on the rate of 

 cell-building at the different stages, at least until the 

 slackening-off period brought in by the frosts of late 

 autumn. Egg-laying, however, in the later stages is even 

 more rapid than cell-building, since in addition to the new 

 cells in which ova are deposited, the old cells vacated by the 

 pupse of first brood are utilised for ova of the second and 

 subsequent broods. 



During the period when the queen builds alone, the cell- 

 building is naturally slowest, and at that time the average 



