Relic of a Quiet Community

Like a little spaceship, a small wasp's nest dangles from the branch of a low shrub. Just a foot or two off the ground (and safely vacated for the winter), it allows a close-up look at the summer home of a paper wasp colony. 

A young wasp queen, or foundress, is the only member of her colony to overwinter; the rest (including the old queen of the previous summer's colony) will die off as the temperatures dip towards freezing. The young queen will find a protected cranny or crevice in which to spend the winter, emerging with the springtime thaws in April and May.

To construct the nest, the foundress will begin with the "petiole"--the stem that attaches the cells below to a twig, eave, or other surface. She will then begin building the hexagonal brood cells in a single layer, and laying an egg within each cell. The nest material is a pulp made from wood or stems. Unlike the large, covered nests of yellowjackets and hornets, those of paper wasps remain open at the bottom, and the colonies are relatively small: from a dozen or so up to around a hundred individuals (the nests of yellowjackets or hornets, on the other hand, can house hundreds or thousands of individuals). 

After the egg hatches, worker wasps will feed the larva bits of caterpillars and other insects until it is ready to pupate. At that time, the larva will seal itself in its cell until it emerges as an adult and joins the colony as a worker, or later in the summer possibly a new queen or male drone. 

Nests are not normally reused year after year, so each stands as a brief testament to the life of the colony that once inhabited it. Imagine a little society, growing and living for a single season, and the only evidence of its existence a flimsy, papery structure, easily overlooked.

 

Sources/additional reading:

• University of Minnesota Extension: Wasps and bees
• Clemson Cooperative Extension: Paper wasps