How Much Wood Could....
A Paper Wasp chew to make its nest? I was putting the car hitch on the RV preparing for a trip this week to Oklahoma for a week of dog shows and I noticed that a wasp keep landing on an old wooden skid along the fence.
It was quite busy and focused on something so it caught my attention and I noticed that it was gnawing on the wood to gather up fine shavings which it would carry off for its nest building. Because it kept coming back to the same spot, I brought out the camera to take a picture of it in action.
Of course I knew that they had to build their nests from something however this was the first time that I seen one in progress.
Very interesting. I was expecting a woodchuck!
Nice capture. I've never seen this but have watched mud daubers build a nest.
Cwilson341 wrote:
Very interesting. I was expecting a woodchuck!
Thanks, Carol. This behavior was a first for me. I had suspected that they chewed dried leaves or grasses to make their nests but this one was more like a beaver gnawing away at the wood.
Cool! I've seen this too.
There are pictures on the web somewhere where someone supplied wasps with multicolored paper. The resulting nests were really eye-popping.
JRiepe wrote:
Nice capture. I've never seen this but have watched mud daubers build a nest.
Thanks, mud daubers are very interesting to watch for they hunt spiders and parallelize them to entomb them with their egg for its first meal. Here's one that I pried off the wall of the shed that shows all of the spiders packed in it waiting for the larvae to hatch.
Mark Sturtevant wrote:
Cool! I've seen this too.
There are pictures on the web somewhere where someone supplied wasps with multicolored paper. The resulting nests were really eye-popping.
Wow, Mark. That would be quite novel as well as entertaining. I'm not fond of the paper wasps around the house for they tend to be very aggressive to me. However whenever I am out walking about in the fields they pay no attention to me and we get along fine.
If they insist we must photograph them, sippy. Great closeup.
kpmac wrote:
If they insist we must photograph them, sippy. Great closeup.
Thanks, Kpmac. It was on a nest building mission so it paid no attention to me being close to it with the camera.
ecobin wrote:
Nice capture, Gary.
Thanks, Elliott. I appreciate the feedback.
A shot of a wasp in action, well caught.
Nice capture. I remember them from Indiana--the hated me
EnglishBrenda wrote:
A shot of a wasp in action, well caught.
Thanks, Brenda. I was working nearby and I noticed that the wasp would leave and then come back time after time. I watch for them around the house because I get tagged from time to time. I went in and got the camera and when I looked at it through the macro lens I could see that it was gnawing away at the wood.
I have a colony of Carpenter Bees that terrorize the wooden roof joists by drilling their most perfectly round holes in them however this is the first time that I have seen a wasp chewing away.
Curmudgeon wrote:
Nice capture. I remember them from Indiana--the hated me
Thanks, and they have the same disdain for me too around the house. I get tagged a time or few each year. One got me on the top of my head and that hurt like the dickens and I didn't see it coming.
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