Wasps, Social and Solitary

by George W. Peckham; E. G. Peckham

From this time their ways diverged, and they must be described separately. At nine o’clock the one that we had first seen came up to the opening, walking head first, and flew off, remaining away seven minutes. When she returned she at once resumed her work, and kept at it without a pause until two in the afternoon. At this hour she went away, and we never saw her again. We suppose that she was killed, for it seems improbable that so faithful a creature could have deserted her half-finished home. Pompilus quinquenotatus often deserted a partly finished nest for some more enticing spot, and Sphex started several excavations before making a final choice; but we cannot believe that there was anything fickle about Crabro.

The second wasp came up head first to the entrance of her hole at two minutes after nine, as though she had been influenced, in some subtle way, by her neighbor’s example; but after looking about for a moment she went back. She repeated this observation several times, and finally, at twenty-five minutes after nine, came out and flew to a leaf near by. Then she circled around, alighting a number of times, and at last departed. Her stay was brief, for at just thirty-five minutes after nine she returned, and at once settled down to her work.

We now began to make notes as to the length of time that it took her to go down and bring back her load. We timed her again and again, and found that she was remarkably regular, each of her trips occupying from forty-five to fifty seconds.

All that day we kept her under strict surveillance, and never once did she suspend her operations either for rest or refreshment. Late in the afternoon, while we sat watching her as she appeared and disappeared with almost the regularity of clockwork, we found it difficult to realize that the patient little creature had been at work for more than twenty-four hours, with only one brief intermission. Without hurry or flurry she kept at her task, reminding us, in her business-like ways, of the social wasps of the genus Vespa. When we left her, at dusk, we attached the recording tube to the stem, and at ten o’clock in the evening we found that she had not stopped working. We emptied the glass, and left her.

At seven o’clock in the morning of July twenty-ninth we paid her a visit, and could scarcely believe the testimony of our senses when we saw that the record was one of unceasing toil through the long hours of the second night. We began to wonder if she would ever finish her task. Wonderful though she was, we had grown a little weary of our long session of watching. We had been glad that she worked through the first night; it was creditable to her and interesting to us, and we admired her even more for sticking to it through the second, but when it looked as though we might have to remain by her side through another long day, watching an endless series of loads as they were carried out, we confess that we thought she was rather overdoing it. Gradually, however, she slowed up her work, taking two or three minutes to make a journey down and up. At last, at just nine o’clock, her head appeared at the top of the stalk, and after a slight hesitation she flew away. The nest was completed.

We have studied wasps for a number of years, and we feel that we are on terms of more or less intimacy with many of the species, but never before have we known one to work after day was done. We have often gone out with a lantern at bedtime for a tour of inspection among our nests, and have always found the inhabitants quiet and presumably asleep. The social wasps are very industrious, but during the hot nights of July they are to be seen clustered together on the outside of their paper nests in deep repose; and although the Vespa wasps that nest in the ground sometimes come home late in the twilight, we have never seen them work after it was really dark. Polistes fusca may be said to share our cottage, so thickly does she hang her combs under the shelter of our porches, and from observations taken at all hours we know that she is quiet through the night. Sir John Lubbock, in “Ants, Bees, and Wasps,” speaks of the great industry of wasps. He has known them to work from early morning until dusk without any interval for rest or refreshment; but here was our little Crabro toiling from three in the afternoon of July twenty-seventh, through that night and the day and night following until nine o’clock on the morning of the twenty-ninth,—a period of forty-two consecutive hours with one intermission of ten minutes on the morning of the twenty-eighth. Surely she takes the palm for industry, not only from other wasps, but from the ant and the bee as well.[ill113]

NEST OF C. STIRPICOLA

The nest was completed, but the work of storing it remained to be done. The wasp flew away at nine o’clock, and ten minutes later came back with something, we knew not what, for she dropped into her hole so quickly that she was out of sight almost before we knew she was there. Two minutes later she came up, and was off again. This time she was gone twelve minutes, and when she returned we were again baffled in our effort to see what she was carrying. When she came out she alighted upon a leaf and attended to her toilet, cleaning both body and wings by rubbing them off with her hind legs, and from this time on she never started on a hunting expedition without paying this attention to her personal appearance. On her third trip she was gone twenty minutes, coming back with a small fly; and before we left her at ten o’clock, she had stored six more. When we came back at half past two in the afternoon she was working, and she kept up her goings and comings until four o’clock, when she suspended operations for the day. On the next morning we were called away, and know nothing of what she did, but on the following day, Thursday, we resumed our observations. She worked hard all the morning, but in the afternoon her trips were few, and were made at long intervals. On Friday she worked from eight to nine, when she departed, and never returned. We watched for her, at intervals, all through that day and the next, when we were forced to conclude that our faithful little worker had fallen a victim to some bird or beast. We did not disturb the nest until four days later, when we cut the stalk, and examined it.