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IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Fig. 1. Insects that visit red clover. 



stead of remarking, "Go to the ant, thou sluggard," Solomon might as 

 well have said, "Go to the wasp." 



In a hornet's nest we find the same division of labor that occurs in 

 a bee hive, but not quite so complete. The queen alone lives through win- 

 ter. In the spring she gathers a bit of fiber from some old weathered 

 post, makes a few cells, lays her eggs, catches and chews up caterpillars 

 for her young, and rears them into workers who soon take upon them- 

 selves the duties of home enlargement and food-gathering. The queen 

 is now able to devote her whole time to egg-laying, hence by fall the 

 colony may number into thousands. 



Contrasting with these, and far more numerous in species, are the soli- 

 tary wasps. There are no workers among these, — merely males and 

 females. The female digs her nest in the ground, bores it in wood, 

 molds it of mud, or adapts some convenient cavity already prepared. 

 In this nest the food insects, varying in number and kind with the 

 species of the wasp, are stored after having been stung in the nerve 

 centers by the mother wasp so that they may not become too active and 



