jfebruavs 43 



QUEEN WASPS 



Queen wasps are now beginning to come out of 

 the holes and crevices in which they have been 

 hibernating during the winter. All the male and 

 worker wasps die in the autumn, and only the 

 queens survive until the following spring, when 

 milder weather wakens them from their torpid con- 

 dition, and they begin to seek a suitable place in 

 which to build a nest and found a wasp colony. 



We have in England four or five species of wasps, 

 and each may readily be distinguished by the 

 markings on the face and body, as shown in the 

 illustration. 



The common wasp (Vespa vulgaris) prefers to 

 build cither in a hollow tree or a hole in a hedge 

 bank. Having scooped out a sufficiently large 

 cavity, the queen lines it with a papery substance 

 made of decayed wood. 



I often watch these insects busily at work upon 

 the stump of an old tree in my garden. With 

 their strong mandibles they rasp off the dry wood 

 fibres and moisten them with a glutinous liquid, 

 secreted in their mouths, until they have a small 

 bundle of a convenient size to carry away. With 

 this material the wasp makes a ceiling to her nest, 

 placing about sixteen layers one over the other, to 

 make a firm foundation. 



From this roof are suspended terraces of cells 

 made of the same grey paper, and formed exactly 

 like the honey-comb of bees, only these are made 

 to contain wasp-eggs instead of honey. An egg is 

 laid in each cell, and the grubs when hatched hang 

 head downwards and are fed from below. This 



