i68 INSECT ARTIZANS AND THEIR WORK 



a few days emerges as a worker wasp and eats 

 through the cap of its cell. All the earlier cells 

 produce workers, and these, as soon as their yellow- 

 and-black armour has set firm, begin to help the 

 mother wasp. They gather wood-fibres, and build 

 new combs ; cut away the old walls to accommodate 

 an increased diameter of the combs, but first build 

 newer walls farther out. 



The mother wasp can now devote her energies 

 to laying eggs in the new cells, the workers per- 

 forming her other functions as nurse and builder. 

 For a long time the combs produce nothing but 

 workers, so that when two or three batches of 

 these have emerged, the work of extension goes 

 on with rapidity. The old cells are cleaned out 

 and made available for a fresh batch of eggs in 

 addition to those laid in the new combs. Later 

 in the season cells of rather larger size are con- 

 structed, and from the grubs reared in these larger 

 wasps emerge. These are males and females. 



It is not generally understood by those who 

 have not made a study of insect life that there is no 

 possibility of being stung by a male wasp, for the 

 simple reason that he is not endowed with a sting. 

 But, of course, those which usually cause alarm by 

 their presence have the power of stinging, they 

 being nearly always workers, the males, as stated, 

 being produced only late in the season and dying 

 soon after mating. The armed workers, however, 

 should not be feared, for they have scarcely ever 

 been known to sting unless they are molested. A 



