Wasps, Bees, and Ants 
491 
wasps that live a communal life, like that of the bumble- and honey-bees, 
belong to the Vespoidea. The Sphecoidea may be distinguished from the 
bees by their slender undilated tarsi, as contrasted with the swollen, pollen¬ 
carrying tarsi of the bees. 
The eggs of wasps are usually deposited in a nest (burrow in soil, tunnel 
in wood, receptacle built of clay, cells made of wasp-paper, etc.) in which 
food, consisting of killed or paralyzed insects, is stored for the use of the 
larva, or to which, after the larva’s 
birth, insect food is brought by the 
mother or by sterile workers. The 
parasitic wasps deposit their eggs on 
the paralyzed body of some insect, 
while the guest wasps lay their eggs 
in the nests of other wasps or bees, 
where the hatching larva can feed on 
the food stored up by the host for its 
own young. The larvae are white, 
footless, soft-bodied grubs, which lie 
in their cells feeding on the food stored 
up or brought them and pupating in 
the same cell. The adults on issuing 
from the pupal cuticle gnaw their way out of the cell by means of their 
strong jaws. With the social wasps all the eggs are laid by a queen or 
fertile female in each community; with the solitary ones each female lays 
eggs. 
The general external structural characters of wasps are familiar: the 
elongate but compact and trim body with usually smooth, shining surface, 
variously colored and patterned, steely blue, jet black, yellow, and rusty 
reddish being the commoner colors and the pattern usually consisting of 
narrow or broad transverse bands or rings. All have four clear membra¬ 
nous wings (excepting the female Mutillidae), and all the females and 
workers have strong stings. The mouth-parts consist of strong toothed 
jaws, of jaw-like maxillae and lobed under lip, the last two usually closely 
joined by membranes and specially fitted for lapping up sweetish liquids 
or soft viscous or solid substances. The killing or paralyzing of the prey 
(food for the young) is accomplished by the sting, while the digging and 
mining and the transporting of materials for the nest are done by the strong 
mandibles. The antennae are rather long and slender, the compound eyes 
large and many-faceted. 
The digger-wasps differ from the social kinds, such as the yellow-jackets 
and hornets, by not living together in communities, composed of a queen, 
males, and sterile workers, but by living solitarily. There are no sterile 
Fig. 692. —■ Nest-burrow of Oxybelus 
quadri-notatus. (After Peckham; one- 
half natural size.) 
