1928] 
Reconstruction of Destroyed Nest by Polistes Wasps 151 
THE RECONSTRUCTION OF DESTROYED NESTS BY 
POLISTES WASPS. 
By Phil Rau, 
Kirkwood, Mo. 
Eight nests of P. pallipes and one of P. variatus were re- 
moved from the wall of a shed on July 21. The adult wasps 
were driven away when the nests were knocked down, but soon 
all of them settled again upon the old location of their homes. 
After only three days I found that each group had reconstructed 
its nest on the identical spot where the first one had been re- 
moved. Each of these nests already contained from 14 to 22 
cells, and almost every cell contained an egg. Here, in case of 
hasty construction to replace a lost population, we see the 
economy in the method of building many shallow cells at first 
instead of few very deep cells. In the one nest of variatus , having 
seven adults, there were 22 cells. This shows that complete 
families, when disturbed, quickly rebuild, but notes elsewhere 
show that queens seldom do. 
On June 15 and 16, when only queens were on the nests, all 
the station sheds along the railroad tracks were repainted; in 
the process, six new P. pallipes nests were knocked down at the 
station of Wickes, but not one was rebuilt that summer. 
At Cliff Gave, on June 29th, I found a queen mother working 
on a newly begun nest with only six shallow cells. This tiny nest 
was unusual at this time of year, when all the other nests already 
had workers; but it showed at least that one queen did not lose 
courage in a calamity, but had the impulse to build anew. 
A P. pallipes nest was knocked down from the ceiling of an 
open pavilion at Meramec Highlands in the latter part of July; 
on August 6 the wasps were busily rebuilding. I got the nest, 
and found it to be composed of shallow cells of less than one- 
third normal depth, 30 in all, and all but one containing an egg. 
Twenty of the cells contained also from one to three drops of 
various sizes of the transparent, jelly-like material described 
