THEY LOOK LIKE... 
HORNETS' AND YELLOW JACKETS' 
NESTS are made of a papier-maché PN 
material; the wasps produce it by Kor ; 
chewing up rotted wood, dead stems Aas 
and leaves, or paper and cardboard f 
fragments. The nests are large and 
globular. They are usually found Ps ; aN 
aboveground—on branches of trees, in wv a. 
shrubbery, on gables. Some species 
build nests underground. 
A POLISTES NEST is also made of a re 
paperlike material that the wasps pro- *y ON aa ae 
duce. It is composed of a circular J Beit a 
comb of cells that open downward. ee? Wig eae ° 
ames ©) Levers 
Ben - Ny weer 
at woe ee ee 
MUD DAUBERS' NESTS are made of ‘ 
clay. They are often built around ) 4 
dwellings or outbuildings, both inside mi 
and outside. They are sometimes built & iy i , 
in stored machinery and equipment. es } sh 
1) 
= = nae . 
Larvae depend on adults for their food and care. 
The queen cares for the larvae of her first brood 
(all of which are workers), feeding them daily 
with freshly killed insects. Workers care for 
larvae of subsequent broods. 
The larval stage lasts 12 to 18 days. As larvae 
grow, they fill out the cells and depend less on the 
gluey secretion to hold them in place. When full 
grown, they spin silken cocoon caps over the cells 
and transform to pupae. 
Pupae are motionless within their cocoons. 
They resemble adults except for a thin, trans- 
parent niembrane that coversthem. At first they 
are creamy white, but gradually color comes to 
wings, legs, antennae, and other body parts. At 
the end of the pupal stage, which lasts about 12 
days, the covering membrane breaks, and an 
adult emerges. 
4 
Once her first brood matures, the queen resumes 
egg laying. A hornet or yellow jacket queen may 
lay as many as 25,000 eggs; a Polistes, several 
hundred. 
Most wasps are workers. During the life of a 
colony, a hornets’ nest or yellow jackets’ nest may 
contain as many as 15,000 workers to several 
hundred queens and males. The ratio in a Polistes’ 
nest may be several hundred workers to a couple 
of dozen queens and males. 
As soon as they appear, workers take complete 
charge of nest life. They enlarge the nest by 
building additional cells. They care for all imma- 
ture larvae. They forage for food. 
@ Mud Daubers 
Mud daubers also pass through egg, larval, 
pupal, and adult stages in their development. 
Only two adult forms exist—the females and 
males. 
In the spring, young adults come out of nests 
(where they have overwintered as pupae) and 
mate. The females look for suitable sites to 
build new nests in which to deposit their eggs. 
Each selects a sheltered area, which may be in or 
near a building, and begins constructing clay cells. 
First, the female builds a cell. Next, she catches 
about 20 immature spiders, paralyzes them with 
her sting, and stores them in the cell. Then, she 
lays an egg in the cell and caps the cell with a 
clay covering. She repeats this pattern until she 
has built 6 to 20 cells. 
When her nest building, provisioning, and egg- 
laying jobs are done, she leaves the nest and does 
not return. The larvae hatch from the eggs and 
begin feeding on the paralyzed spiders. In a few 
days they spin cocoons and transform to pupae. 
The pupae transform to adults in about 2 weeks. 
There may be 1 to 3 generations of mud daubers 
each year, depending on the section of the country. 
Females and males are about equal in number. 
Upon reaching maturity, they leave their nests 
and carry on their activities independently. 
NESTS 
Wasps can be identified by the nests they build. 
The globular, papier-maché nests concealing multi- 
combed structures are peculiar to hornets and 
yellow jackets; the single-layer, open-faced, 
umbrella-shaped nests, to Polistes; and the clay- 
cell nests, to mud daubers. The size of the nests 
varies with the number of wasps living in them. 
Hornets and yellow jackets continually enlarge 
their nests to accommodate the growing popula- 
tion. They do this by adding new combs or layers 
5 
