1936] 
An Odd Hibernaculum 
19 
AN ODD HIBERNACULUM 
By H. Elliott McClure 
It is well known that birds’ nests, mice nests, loose bark, 
and other hiding places serve as hibernacula for numerous 
insects, but the winter inhabitants of a bald faced hornet’s 
nest, Vespa maculata Kirby, were surprising. 
On March 4, 1933 in the Brownsfield woods, an oak-maple 
woods near Urbana, Illinois, a large Vespa nest, forty feet 
above the ground, was discovered on a limb of a sugar maple 
tree. It was secured and removed to the laboratory for ex- 
amination. At the time it was taken the temperature was 
2° C. 
The nest was 32 centimeters wide and 45 centimeters long 
with 13 layers of paper on the outside and six tiers of cells. 
It weighed 407 grams. The opening was not at the bottom, 
but several centimeters up on the side. Below this hole in 
the bottom of the nest was a sort of graveyard. 100 dead 
adults were massed there and of these the sex of 52 was iden- 
tifiable. They were all males. Of the 2720 cells in the six 
tiers 165 were still capped and contained pupae or adults 
and there were 30 dried and shriveled larvae in uncapped 
cells. 
Soon after the hive was brought into the warm laboratory 
a rustling was noted thruout it. Upon tearing it apart 65 
cockroach nymphs, Ischnoptera pennsylvanica (De Geer), 
were captured. They were hiding in between the layers of 
paper. Besides these, three spiders ( Philodromus pernix ) , 
two spiders (Drassus, immature) and six undetermined mites 
were found. Thus there were 76 arthropods hibernating in 
these quarters. Probably the roaches came to the nest for 
the food available and may have been there before the winter 
set in. The spiders probably moved in with the advent of 
cold weather. The role played by the mites was not de- 
termined. 
