This week’s blog entry comes more from a forced encounter than a casual one. It seems that there is a nest of paper wasps or Polistes exclamans somewhere near the side of my house and every time I leave my backdoor open for my dog, a few seem smart enough to want to come inside and enjoy the AC. Wasps, as a whole, are generally useful for pollution, predation, and parasitism. Paper wasps are especially usually in the elimination of caterpillars but they will also eat flies, crickets, and other pests. In early fall, the colony begins to produce males and special reproductive female wasps. These reproductive females, which constitute next year’s queens, mate with males and soon leave the nest in search of protected spots in which they spend the winter. The remaining worker wasps eventually die and the nest becomes vacant. Paper wasps will not reuse their nests the next year (Bellmore).
Link to iNaturalist: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/4173507
PSA. No wasps were harmed in the making of this blog post
Works Cited:
Bellmore, Laura. “Beneficial Insects in the Garden: #01 Paper Wasps.” Beneficial Insects in the Garden: #01 Paper Wasps. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.
I have 2 big nest of paper wasps in the eaves of my deck. They are far enough from the doors. They set shop when we were gone for 2 months. I have been observing them for a month now and looks like the nest is getting sparse. I want to know how long before they are gone completely. I know they are beneficial and do no generally like to kill other critters if they can co-exist.