Paper Wasp Stages

[The15thMember]

Last night while us adults were watching a rom-com (Table 19, I would highly recommend it) my young siblings were being biologists.  They found a small paper wasp nest under the eaves of their chicken barn, and they fly-swattered the four adults who were guarding the nest to death and took down the nest.  Then on the spur of the moment, they decided to dissect it.  When the movie was over, they showed me all the developmental stages of the wasps that they had removed from the nest, from egg to pupa. I was super impressed with the kids' work.  I was also extremely surprised to find that the wasp larvae appear to have strangely spherical bodies.    Who knew!   

[Ben Framed]

Nice pictures. These make good fish bait!

[The15thMember]

Nice pictures. These make good fish bait!

Thanks.  I actually pulled a frame of drones today for that purpose. 

[Occam]

Such a cool post. Love seeing the different developmental stages

[Michael Bush]

I used to take them down to put them back up in the eves of Terry Combs house.  We would spray them with water until they fell, pick the nest, and put it in a jar, wait for them to get dry and land on the nest, put the lid (with holes of course) on and take it back to his house.  Then dump them out, wait for them to settle again, spray hem wet and put the nest up.  I suppose we could have easily dissected it when it was free of wasps instead of putting them in the jar.