274 NATURE’S CRAFTSMEN 
is also a wide difference in architecture. Some 
wasps build pear-shaped homes; others are round, 
and still others build in spiral form. In South 
America is a paper wasp which builds great 
structures fully three feet across, and containing 
thousands of little cells, each of which serves sev¬ 
eral times each season as the cradle of a baby 
wasp. 
“ Wasps, like bees, live in colonies which con¬ 
sist of the queen, drones, and workers, but no 
matter how strong their numbers they are crea¬ 
tures of one season only. The young queens, 
which are hatched late in the fall, leave the nest 
as winter approaches in company with the drones 
for a brief marriage flight. The first frost catches 
the shiftless drones, but the young queens, heavy 
with eggs, creep into some warm shelter and sleep 
the season through. Then, with the first hint of 
warm spring days, they come forth and each one 
chooses a nesting site and founds a new colony of 
her own. 
“ I once watched a young Queen Baldface at 
this task, and a more interested, industrious little 
individual than she I never expect to see. The 
location was the sturdy arm of an old oak which 
stretched behind the tool shed. The material 
came from the decaying timbers of the shed it¬ 
self, and, notwithstanding that there was but one 
pair of tiny jaws on the job, matters progressed 
