50 
Psyche 
[March- June 
WASPS FEEDING ON COMB-HONEY 
By Phil Rau 
Kirkwood, Missouri 
When a plate of honey is placed out-of-doors to attract honey- 
bees, it is interesting to see how quickly wasps are also attracted 
to it. Honey in a tin plate is certainly different in its setting and 
in its quality from the weak nectar in the flowers which wasps are 
accustomed to patronizing. 
But if wasps and honey-bees are attracted to honey, it is 
strange indeed that solitary bees are not likewise attracted to it. 
In the clay bank in my garden, not far from the honey dish, many 
Anthophora abrupta, Osmia cordata, O. lignaria were nesting but 
none of these ever came to the honey. In the wooden frame above 
the clay bank many Xylocopa virginica were also nesting and even 
though I have often fed them honey from a glass rod while they 
were trying to extract nectar from the flowers, I have never seen 
Xylocopa go to the honey -plate. 
Many bumble-bees, Bombus americanorum , visit the flowers 
nearby, but none of them are attracted to the honey in the dish. 
Do wasps and honey-bees learn more quickly than wild bees that 
honey is a richer food than nectar, and that honey in a dish is 
more accessible than nectar in the flowers? 
The following wasps have often been seen feeding from a dish 
of honey : 
Monobia quadridens L., both sexes. 
Eumenes fraternus Say. 
Sceliphron ccementarium Drury. 
Polistes pallipes Lepel. 
Polistes variatus Cress. 
Vespula maculijrons Buyss., workers. 
Arachnophroctonus ferrugineus Say. 
Honey-bees, as already stated, were easily attracted to a dish 
of honey in the grass, but what is surprising is that the dipterous, 
heavy-bodied mimic of the honey-bee, Eristalis tenax L. [C. T. 
Greene] was also often attracted to it and ate heavily of the 
honey. 
