Paper Wasps

Polistes chinensis (Asian Paper Wasp)

There is a little story to tell 😀 Paper wasps have built a nest on a wire trellis in the garden. This particular wasp species is Polistes chinesis (Asian wasp) and can be quite viscious when its nest is threatened The sting is very painful, as I can testify from previous encounters. You can see the nest is made up of hexagonal coloumns of mashed wood pulp and saliva. Within these tubes the eggs are laid and in which they grow to maturity. You can see some of the eggs in the upper tubes. In some of the shots you see the wasps with what looks like a mass of froth around their mouth. This is masticated food (probably some caterpillars) which the wasps feed to the larvae. You will also see in some shots balls of glistening saliva. The wasps produce this and put it in the tubes then flap their wings vigorously to evaporate to produce a cooling effect on the larvae. As the larvae grow they become maggot like, you can see some of them protruding from the tubes. When close to hatching they spin a silk cap over the tube, you can see a few wasps clinging to the cap. Eventually the new adult wasp cuts through the cap and emerges almost fully grown (but haven't been able to capture that happening). 😀