IPOI 



GLEANINGS IN BKE CULTURE. 



1819 



self. Indeed, in one I'edpect they are even 

 ahead of man, for they were first by a long 

 period to invent the paper-making habit. 

 The wasps make this paper by scraping old 

 logs, boards, or twigs, and mixing with the 

 scrapings saliva from their own glands, and 

 thus they foi'm a pulp which they fashion 

 with the same mandibles or jaws that they 

 use to do the scraping, into a string, which 

 is laid on to the place where it is to remain, 

 when they thin and spread it with the jaws 

 till it takes the shape that they wish. 



Some of the wasps build the nests in the 

 ground or in hollow trees, or other conceal- 

 ed places, while others place them under cor- 

 nices, or in buildings, while others place or 

 build them right in the open, attached to a 

 tree or other support. One genus, Polistes, 

 places its horizontal comb under board or 

 cornice, etc., with, no cover. These are so 

 common that all have seen them. Another 

 genus, Vespa, often known as yellow-jackets, 

 make several of these horizontal combs, one 

 above the other, and surround all with a pa- 

 per cover, often of several thicknesses. The 

 one sent by you is of this kind. These are 

 often very large, and are better supported 

 sometimes by being built around branching 

 twigs, like these you have photographed. 

 These nests are enlarged the summer through, 

 and to do this the wasps are constantly tear- 

 ing the sides away, building on to the combs, 

 and then renewing the covering wall. Thus 

 these yellow-jack- 

 ets rival the bees 

 in industry. 



These paper- 

 making wasps are 

 like bees in being 

 social, and, like 

 bees, may have a 

 great many indi- 

 viduals in the col- 

 ony by the end of 

 the season. They 

 are like bees also 

 in having queens, 

 workers, and 

 drones, or males 

 in the colony. 

 Each sex is pro- 

 duced as is the 

 same with bees. 

 The drones come 

 as a result of par- 

 thenogenesis, that 

 is, the eggs are 

 not fecundated. 

 The queens are 

 developed further 

 as the result of a 

 better table in the 



early or larval stage, while the workers, less 

 well fed, are not developed sexually, and so 

 are abortive females. 



They differ from the honey-bee, and are 

 like the bumble-bees in that all die in the 

 fall but the young queens. In the spring the 

 large queen starts the nest, and at first does 

 all the work. In three or four weeks from 

 the egg-laying, the first wasps hatch out, or 



come forth from the cells, and are all work- 

 ers, and smaller than the queens. For a 

 time all are workers, and these now do all 

 the work, and the queens lay only eggs. In 

 midsummer the unfecundated eggs are laid, 

 and the brood, or some of it, is better fed, and 

 soon the males, also larger than the workers, 

 and the young queens come forth. These fiy 

 forth to mate as do our bees; and as soon as 

 the cold of winter comes on, all die but the 

 young queens, which seek some nook where 

 they may hide and be protected from the 

 cold. 



There are three ways that we may know 

 these wasps. When at rest their front larger 

 wings fold lengthwise; they all make paper 

 nests, and they are social, like bees, and are 

 unlike bees in being much more hairy, and 

 in not having their hind legs widened for 

 pollen-baskets. 



There are three genera of these vespids. 

 The first, Vespa, makes the spherical, cov- 

 ered nests, and are known as yellow-jackels 

 and as hornets; the second, Polistes, are long- 

 er than the Vesjm, and the abdomen tapers 

 into a short stem-like origin at its base, in- 

 stead of being broad as it is in bees and in 

 Tespa; while in the third, Polybia, found on- 

 ly in California, it is still broader, so it looks 

 like a long stem. 



All of these wasps are our good friends, as 

 they are engaged all the live-long day in 

 catching insects that otherwise would eat up 



PAPER NESTS OF THE COMMON W^ASPS OR HORNETS. 



our plants. We can not measure the good 

 that they thus do. They chew up this food, 

 and very likely add some secretion, and then 

 dole it out sparingly to the larva workers, 

 and give it liberally to the young of the pi'o- 

 spective queens. 



These wasps are like bees in another re- 

 spect — they have very effective stings which 

 they are as free to use in self-defense as 



