CHAPTER XII 



THE ORIGINAL PAPER-MAKERS 



T~ p ~"^HE societies of the paper wasps, 1 like those of other social 

 g insects of the family, consist of three kinds of individuals, 



males, females and workers. The colonies only exist for a 

 single season, the males and workers dying in the fall. The 

 females or queens hibernate and each starts a new community in the 

 spring. The queen is the largest in the colony and her one duty, 

 after the first few weeks of spring, is egg laying. The males or 

 drones are created for the one purpose of fertilizing the eggs of the 

 queen and after performing this duty they are frequently killed and 

 thrown from the nest by the workers. These so-called workers are, 

 in reality, undeveloped females, who are unable to reproduce in a 

 beneficial way, as their eggs invariably produce drones. Thus they 

 are unable to assist in increasing the numbers of working individuals 

 in the colony and the heavier \vork must therefore fall upon these 

 otherwise useless members. 



Let us start with the queen mother, the only survivor of last year's 

 colony, who has safely passed through the winter in an impregnated 

 and torpid condition and who must now lay the foundations of another 

 great insect city. 



When in the spring she lays the foundations of her future empire, 

 she has not a single worker at her disposal, and with her own hands 

 and teeth she must lay the corner-stone of her future metropolis. 

 She must herself build the first combs and produce from her own 

 womb their first inhabitants, which in their infant state, she must feed 

 and educate before they can assist her in the great design. At length, 



1 Polistes pallipes. 



95 



