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True Bees — Part 10

The true social wasps, nearly all of which in the United States belong to the Genera Vespa and Polistes, form communities much like those of the social bees. Their communities, however, are not so perfect and are not so persistent as are those of the true honey bee or of the ants, but resemble more nearly those of the bumblebee. There is a form known as the worker, just as with the social bees, and the workers here, as in the other cases, are undeveloped females. Here also, as with the social bees, these undeveloped females or workers may lay eggs which invariably produce males or drones.

Most of our social wasps make paper combs and nests. They are in fact the original paper-makers, and it is quite within the possibilities that the paper-making idea in the human species was gained from the observation of these insects. Their paper, however, is made from wood pulp--a late development in the human scale of ingenuity. They are particularly fond of scraping the frayed wood fibre from old weather-beaten fence boards and from the sides of old unpainted buildings. These wood fibres are macerated with their saliva, and a pasty wood pulp is thus formed with which the nests are constructed.

In our consideration of the preceding group of wasps, we said something about individuality among these creatures and its influence upon theories of instinct. In the social wasp also at least one observation seems to show that individuals in the face of an emergency previously unknown to the species readily adapt themselves to new conditions. This observation was made by Miss Mary E. Murtfeldt, of Kirkwood, Mo., who found that in a vineyard where the grape clusters were inclosed in paper bags to prevent destruction by insects the social wasps found that the damp and rotting paper bags were perfectly adapted to their nest-building operations, and they thus used this paper already prepared rather than to take the trouble of manufacturing their own wood-pulp paper. This was a good thing for the wasps, but unfortunate for the vineyardist.

It is more difficult to study the economy of the social wasps than that of either the hive bee or ants. As most of the species are very irritable and possessed of venomous stings, it requires considerable tact and courage to investigate their habits closely.

The size of the communities varies at the season when they are largest, and according to the species, from a few individuals to many hundreds. In one large nest I counted 1,135 cells, and since, as will be shown, the worker cells are used two or three times in the summer, the colonies become very strong. This count was made with the large bald-faced hornet (Vespa maculata) but in some of the smaller wasps or yellow-jackets, like Vespa germanica, the cells are even more numerous. In one nest of the latter species, Mr. Marlatt tells me that he carefully estimated that it contained about fourteen thousand cells.

These communities of the social wasps, unlike those of the hive bee and of ants, but like those of the bumblebees, have only a temporary existence. On the approach of winter the males and workers perish and the fertile females crawl into such protected situations as crevices in walls or under the bark of trees and there pass the winter in a dormant state. At the opening of spring each surviving female founds a new colony. At first she performs the duties of both queen and worker; a small nest is made, eggs are laid in it, and when the larvae hatch they are fed and cared for by the queen until they reach maturity. This first generation is composed entirely of workers. They relieve the queen of the duties which belong to them and from this time forth her only duty is to lay eggs. Sometimes she assists in the care of the young but not in the construction of the nests.