The appearance of wasp larvae and how to get rid of them. Interesting facts about wasp nests

The wasp's nest is a very curious structure that insects construct using their own sticky secretions and fragments of wood. Moreover, wasps can start its construction absolutely anywhere. Outwardly, the finished structure looks like an oval or rounded paper cocoon. By the way, it is precisely because of the ability to produce a building material that is very similar to paper that social wasps got their name - paper.

A wasp nest is a complex structure, which once again confirms that these insects can work and exist as a single organism - as smoothly as possible

Construction material

So what do wasps make their nests out of? The starting material for construction are various wood elements mined by wasps from old stumps, trees, fences, various wooden buildings, etc. That is why the color of the nest is always predominantly gray.

How does the “production” of paper, from which the wasps build their nests, take place? Having found a suitable starting material, the insect sits down, releases a drop of its own saliva onto its surface and, moving backwards, begins to scrape off the finest fibers of wood. In this wasp, its powerful jaws help. Having collected a sufficient amount of material, the insect flies to the place where the nest is built, where this lump is once again processed by the jaws and abundantly wetted with a sticky secretion.

When the building material reaches the required consistency, the wasp sits on the edge of one of the nest cells, presses a lump of chewed wood against it and, moving backwards, stretches it into a thin strip, after which it takes the edge with its jaws and rolls the material in a perpendicular direction. Thus, the thinnest paper wall of the next cell is obtained.

It is interesting! Wasps can produce paper of various densities - both very thin, almost transparent, and its rather strong version, similar to cardboard!

Nest building

Wasps build their nest, as a rule, together, but only the female, the founder of the entire colony, is always involved in its initial construction. She also feeds the first hatched larvae. These larvae subsequently grow into working individuals, which help the female in further construction.

The females begin to build a new nest in early spring immediately after waking up from winter sleep. Having emerged from its hiding place, the founding wasp flies in search of a suitable place for the nest - it must be protected from wind, direct sunlight and prying eyes. Often they stop their choice on a tree branch with a dense crown, an abandoned building, the attic of a private house. Sometimes construction can even begin on the surface of a large stone, in an abandoned hole of some rodent, in a rotten stump, a hollow tree, or behind the sheathing of a residential building.

The first "brick" hornet's nest becomes a thin thread of a frozen sticky secret, which the female attaches to the selected surface. Further, this thread gradually turns into a well-defined “leg”, to which the first two cells are first attached, and then the entire structure.

How does a hornet's nest expand?

The construction of the hornet's nest proceeds quite quickly. As soon as the "foundation" has been laid, the wasps immediately go for additional wood, with which they begin to build cells. At the same time, they take building material, as a rule, in close proximity to the construction site itself, leaving behind characteristic grooves on the surface of the boards or bark. With the help of jaws and paws, the wasp makes thin paper plates, attaches them to the base of the nest and flies for the next portion of the material.

It is interesting! As soon as the female manages to grow the first ten adult worker wasps, she immediately retires and exclusively feeds the larvae. From this moment on, all the construction work is done for her by the newly-made members of a large wasp family!

The hornet's nest grows as follows:

• more and more new cells appear at the base of the handle, which overlap and form honeycombs;
• with an increase in the number of cells, the shape of the future nest begins to be seen - at first it is a kind of bowl;
• over time, the bowl becomes wider and deeper and as a result is transformed into a sphere, in the lower part of which an inlet remains;
• then the wasps begin to build a second sphere, which wraps around the first - thus, the nest increases in size;
• when the construction of the second sphere is completed, the female removes a certain number of cells located on the inner sphere of the first one, and the more shells build up, the more cells are destroyed inside the nest.

As a result, the structure of the hornet's nest turns out to be quite funny: the honeycombs are arranged horizontally - by floors, while the cells look only down.

On a note! Small wasp nests are the size of an average apple. But sometimes they grow quite strongly - up to a meter in diameter, and there can be several thousand insects in such a nest!

The inside of the nest will always be the strongest and safest, and therefore it is there that the uterus itself and the combs in which the larvae develop are located. For the construction of this zone, insects use not thin paper material, but wood chips. Their maximum value is the one that the wasps are able to carry and attach.

The outer shell of the wasp nest is much less durable, as it consists of the thinnest, longest and most elastic paper plates. Moreover, wasps often use recycled raw materials for the construction of the outer skin, which they take from the internal destroyed layers.

The arrangement of the wasp nest is thought out to the smallest detail. Multi-storey honeycombs create a special atmosphere inside the building: almost constant temperature and air humidity are maintained there all the time.

Where do wasps winter?

As mentioned above, nest building begins in early spring. At first it has big sizes and consists of only a few hundred. But gradually the nest expands, the number of shells and floors increases, just like the number of inhabitants. Looking at such huge labor costs of insects, it may seem that they are building a nest, as they say, for centuries. However, in reality this is only a summer dwelling, and the wasps leave the nest when the cold comes.

In autumn, young females mate and disperse in search of suitable wintering grounds. Gradually, wasp nests become completely empty, lifeless. And the role of winter "apartments" for wasps is played by rotten stumps, secluded cracks under fallen trees, upper layer soil under leaf litter, etc.

Wasp's nest medicine

But the efforts of hardworking bees are not in vain, knowledgeable person, having found an empty hornet's nest, he will definitely take it with him. For what? To prepare medicine. Yes, that's right, a hornet's nest can be of great benefit. It, or rather, preparations based on it, are quite actively used in traditional medicine for the treatment of various diseases.

For example, if you compress several of these nests (of course, empty, without insects), put them in a jar and fill them with alcohol, then after two weeks of infusion you can get highly effective agent, which helps in the following situations:

• with joint pain;
• with pain in the spine;
• with arthritis;
• with inflammation of the articular tissue;
• at various forms viral flu;
• with bronchial asthma.

The infusion helps to eliminate the above problems when applied externally - in the form of rubbing. As for its internal intake, it shows very good results in the treatment of inflammatory processes occurring in the gastrointestinal tract, with respiratory diseases and pneumonia. In such situations, 15 drops of infusion are diluted in 50 ml of water and taken three times a day.

The second way to use a hornet's nest is in the form of a powder. This simple one-component preparation heals burns, cuts and other damage to the skin well. Moreover, it not only stimulates tissue regeneration, but also disinfects the affected area. A powder made from crushed wasp houses can also solve the problem of periodontal disease. It perfectly copes with sweating of the feet and eliminates unpleasant odors.

You can store preparations from wasp nests for several years and their strength will not decrease.

The family "paper wasps" (another name is "public") includes two subfamilies: "polistins" and "vespins". The Vespina subfamily also includes hornets, one of the largest representatives of these insects.

Paper wasps are widely distributed throughout the world, but most members of this family live in South-East Asia and America. Science knows more than 1000 species of paper wasps, 30 of them live in Russia.

These insects have a complex language of communication and live in colonies, where each individual has a specific role - protecting the territory, obtaining food and feeding the larvae, building and repairing the nest. Adult insects feed mainly on plant foods, while larvae are fed on animals.

Such a division of diets allows insects to avoid food competition between adults and the younger generation even in conditions of shortage of any type of food, thereby excluding the likelihood of death of both from starvation.

Strict hierarchy and separation in feeding are signs of highly developed insects. Such features, acquired in the course of evolution, allow a large swarm of wasps to act harmoniously, as a single organism, and survive in a variety of conditions.

nest material

A wasp nest most often looks like a gray paper ball or cone. Actually, thanks to this appearance of their house, these wasps got the name "paper".

The ability to work together is not the only feature that allows wasps to build such unusual nests. As a building material, insects use paper, which they themselves make.

To obtain this paper, adult workers grind wood fibers into powder with powerful jaws. Usually for this they choose an old dried tree. Wasps are so proficient in the technology of paper production that they are able to make 5 of its variants - from the thinnest parchment to thick cardboard.

Start of construction

A wasp nest begins to be built by a female, and sometimes several females, who unite for the duration of construction. Waking up from hibernation in early spring, they find a suitable place, protected from the wind and prying eyes. Most often, the choice falls on a branch of a tree, but often females choose abandoned buildings or little-visited attics of residential buildings. It happens that a tree hollow, a rotten stump, a space behind the skin of a human dwelling, or even a hole of some rodent becomes a home for the future generation.

The basis of the future nest is a thin stalk of the female's saliva frozen in the air. Subsequently, it often remains a clearly visible "leg" on which a paper ball hangs. This stalk firmly attaches the nest to the surface that the female has chosen for fastening the future home. To this stalk, the insect attaches the first 2 cells of wax - a start has been made.

nest growth

After making the base of the nest, the female flies in search of building material. Finding suitable wood, she releases a drop of saliva on it, from which the wood fibers soften. The wasp scrapes the pliable wood using its powerful jaws, and with its front paws rolls a small lump out of it. Moving along the wood surface like a precise mechanism, the wasp leaves behind a well-marked trace.

The resulting lumps are carried by the female to the construction site. There, she chews the wood again, mixing it with saliva and secretions from special glands. From the material, which becomes completely soft, the wasp makes a paper plate, carefully and evenly kneading the parchment lump with its front paws. The wasp attaches the resulting piece of paper to the base of the nest and flies for a new portion of the material.

Building a frame, the female at the same time lays eggs and feeds the growing larvae. Mature new wasps join the construction. As soon as the female manages to grow 10 new wasps, she stops building and from that time on she is only engaged in laying eggs, then her children build a nest.

Internal and external device

The most durable part of the wasp nest is the inner one, where the honeycombs with larvae and the uterus are located. Wasps make it from thick sheets of parchment with the addition of whole wood chips, which greatly increases the reliability of the entire building. The outer shell, on the other hand, is made of particularly thin and elastic paper plates, which are easier to roll into long strips.

Gradually, the wasp's nest acquires a spherical shape with a single inlet at the bottom. From this moment on, the wasps begin to expand their home, building new walls over the existing frame. Inside the paper ball becomes more spacious. Often, insects use parts of the inner layers to build the outer skin.

Wasps not only process all parts of their nesting sites in different ways, but also often use wood of different quality for the construction of external and internal layers. For example, on outer skin insects can take wood from the old wooden fence, and for internal departments - young branches of a living tree.

The paper wasp is a hardworking and diligent builder, able to work at a very fast pace. During the summer months, the wasps manage to re-cover their nest more than 5 times, significantly increasing its size. Under favorable circumstances, in unusual house 1 swarm of paper wasps manages to grow about 4 thousand new insects during the summer months.

Young wasps fly away from the parental home, forming new colonies in other habitable places. And only working individuals remain in the old nest, which, before the onset of cold weather, take care of the uterus and repair the hive as necessary.

What do wasps make their nests out of? Completed by a student of the 7th grade of the GBOU secondary school No. 377 of the Kirov district Chizh Svetlana Head Stepanova E.A.

In the summer, I found a hornet's nest right in my apartment ... The wasps made it on a thick curtain, in a secluded, dark corner. The nest was very small, it was not even a nest, but an egg clutch, around which the nest itself was formed. The nest looks like ordinary paper! I had questions: What is a hornet's nest, how wasps make it. Why did the wasp first lay eggs, and only then began to build the walls of the nest? Where in nature can an insect take paper if it is artificial material? What advantage does the design of the nest give to the wasp, in which the entrance is from below?

The purpose of my work: To study the structure of the wasp nest and find out if wasps are useful. Tasks: 1) study the literature and find out which species of wasps make nests 2) find out what material the wasps build their nests from 3) why the nests differ in color 4) find out Is there any benefit from a hornet's nest?

At the first stage, a survey of people was conducted in order to find out their attitude towards wasps. On the question of the benefits or harms of OS, opinions differed.

The second stage: there are about 20 thousand species of wasps in nature, but paper (or public) wasps build such a nest

What material does a wasp make a nest out of? The wasp separates small pieces of wood with its jaws, rubs them thoroughly with saliva, and then applies a thin layer to the nest. The resulting dried mass is similar to rough wrapping paper. You can even write on it.

The third stage: study of the structure of the wasp nest The surface of the nest was gray, had brown, white, green stripes.

Studying the properties of a hornet's nest: 1) Having sprinkled the nest with water, I found that the water rolled down in drops over it 2) I put the pieces of the nest into the water, they did not immediately, but got wet, floated on the surface of the water. 3) Having dipped the pieces in a solution of hydrochloric acid, I found that nothing happened to them either.

Fourth stage: Study of the structure of the nest Having cut the paper layers, I found there cells of the correct hexagonal shape. The cells are arranged horizontally. The entrance to the nest from below is located for the convenience of entering it. The first row of cells is attached to the surface, then the second tier is suspended from it, and so on as the family grows. It turns out a multi-storey "house".

Why are nests needed? Wasps hatch their larvae in their nests. Wasp larvae feed: caterpillars and other insects, chew them thoroughly. To feed all the larvae, you need to cook a large number of reserves, therefore they will destroy a huge amount harmful insects.

Conclusions: Nests are built by paper wasps The nest of wasps is made of a paper-like substance The nest has a very complex structure, the color of the nest depends on the building material that the wasps collected. Wasps are food for birds. Destroying wasps means violating the environment, because in our gardens and orchards there will be more harmful insects that eat crops, and birds will not have enough food to feed their chicks.

• Aerodrome - a device used by beekeepers while shaking out bees. Helps bees enter the hive from the ground
• Bribe - the amount of honey brought by bees in 1 day
• Voshchina - a thin plate of wax inserted into the frame by the beekeeper in order to make it easier for the bees to build honeycombs. "Foundation" of the future sushi
• Smoker - a device used to pacify bees with smoke
• Zabrus - honey mixed with wax caps of honeycombs to be further processed
• Winter club - the state of the bee colony during winter, when the bees do not sleep, but are in a less mobile state, clinging to each other, keeping vitality and warm.
• A deck (it’s also a board) is a beehive used in ancient times to keep bees. It is a hollow tree trunk
• Shop - the body of the hive, which is placed on top. The bees fill it exclusively with honey.
• Honey extractor - a device for pumping honey. Thanks to centrifugal force, honey is pumped out of the honeycomb
• Honey collection - the period of honey collection by bees. There is a main, supporting, etc. The main one - when the bees bring the most bribe (honey)
• Spray - nectar that bees put in honeycombs, fermented and dried to turn it into honey
• Nucleus - a small hive that serves to contain a certain number of bees and a young queen until it is fertilized. It is used in the reproduction of families and in breeding
• Obnozhka - a collection of pollen collected by a bee on its hind legs
• Signet - a way of covering honeycombs with bees. Differs from different breeds, is wet and dry, depending on whether the honey touches the wax caps or not.
• PZHVM - a waste product of the wax moth
• A bee colony is a structural unit of a bee society. honey bees live only in families. The family includes worker bees, drones and only one queen.
• Pollen is a collection of pollen grains from seed plants.
• Pollen collector (pollen trap) - a device for collecting pollen from honey bees
• The buildup is jarg. The period of pumping honey from the frames by the beekeeper
• Printout - removal of wax caps from cells of combs for the removal of honey in centrifuges-honey extractors
• Brood - eggs, open or wax capped larvae of worker bees and drones
• PP - dividing grid, serves to limit the movement of the uterus in cases and magazines
• Dryness - a frame with lined honeycombs. The name comes from the fact that the frames, after pumping honey, are usually dried indoors.
• A drone is a male insect whose vital task is to fertilize a young uterus.
• SCM - silent queen change - the natural replacement of the old queen with a new one by bees, occurring without swarming,
• Street - the distance between 2 frames. The concept is used when buying and selling frame bee packages or hives, when they indicate how many streets are occupied by bees. The frames in the package are always 1 less than the streets

This amazing architectural structure is often found in the attics of a private house. An oval cellular cocoon can sometimes reach 1 m in diameter. This is the dwelling of wasps.

The question arises - what wasps make nests from: what building materials do insects use? Appearance they look like paper.

Vespiary

Where did these skilled builders get it from, how do they manage to create a comfortable and functional home - the answers are in our article.

All numerous types of wasps are divided into two categories: social and solitary. Their way of life differs significantly. The same can be said about their home.

Singles are simple. They do not suffer from gigantism. For most species, one or more cells on a wall or on a tree trunk is sufficient.

There may be many such cells in different places, but they do not communicate with each other. Some species do without nests at all.

With social wasps, things are much more complicated. They live in colonies, sometimes very numerous, and therefore the offspring are bred collectively. This requires a large nest.

What building material do wasps use?

What do wasps make their nests out of?

Loners have a huge variety in the choice of material:

• Mud wasps build their nests out of mud. They are cup-shaped and attached to a stone or wall of a building.
• Earthen - dig a mink for just one cell, supplying the future larva with food and sealing it. When making it, they use small pebbles that they hold with their jaws.
• Carpenter wasps make a house for their offspring in wood, gnawing tunnels there.
• Potters are great masters. They mold a jug out of clay, attach it to a branch and breed offspring in it.

For public wasps building material is wood or stems of herbs. Scraping thin layer, they chew it, from the resulting fibrous mass they form cells.

This is how wasps make their nests out of paper. Despite the apparent fragility, the material is very durable.

The initial stage of building a hive

He doesn't care about his own weight. It can also withstand small gusts of wind.

Construction process

For a colony of social earth wasps, the overwintered queen is looking for a suitable mink. If necessary, she expands and cleans it up.

Next to it should be a large amount of food. It is enough for the uterus to make no more than 10 cells from chewed and moistened saliva tree bark which turns into paper.

A little more than a month will pass and the first working wasps will hatch from the eggs laid in the cells. They will continue building.

The process of building a wasp hive

If necessary, the nest space can expand - insects do an excellent job with earthworks.

Social paper wasps are equipped in a similar way and the material for the nest is the same.

The construction technology is slightly different:

1. the founder of the colony attaches to the chosen place a thin thread consisting of a developed sticky secret;
2. solidifying, the thread forms a leg to which the first cells are attached, the structure looks like a small chandelier;
3. working insects appear from the eggs laid in them, and they complete the nest;
4. overlapping each other, the cells turn into honeycombs;
5. at first, the nest has the shape of a bowl, new cells turn it into a sphere;
6. a second sphere is built around it, at this time some of the cells are removed from the nest.

Socket device

A fully completed nest has an interesting structure: in the horizontal floors of combs, all cells are oriented with the entrance down.

Below them is the inlet. This orientation is natural - garbage does not accumulate in the cells, because it all falls to the bottom.

The strongest and safest is inner part nests. During its construction, insects use pieces of wood in the form of chips.

They are obtained by peeling off a thin layer of wood. For this, the striped builder uses its jaws and paws.

The traces left by them on the wood are very characteristic. The size of the chips is determined by the ability of the wasp to carry it away. The outer part of the nest is built from thin paper.

Sometimes insects use the destroyed inner layers to create it; for this, paper is recycled by chewing again.

The internal structure of the wasp hive

The conditions for the existence of wasps in a spherical nest are close to ideal: the temperature and humidity of the air do not change there.

The wasp house does not have a once and for all given shape. He constantly changes it: damaged parts are removed and new ones are completed.

A colony of wasps increases in numbers by breeding new individuals, and each egg needs a cell. But you don't have to rebuild it. After the departure of the working wasp, it is cleaned and reused for its intended purpose.

Where do wasps most often build their nests?

Single wasps for their nests choose very different places: some are comfortable in tree branches or in a nook on the wall of the house, some dig minks in the ground, usually where people do not go.

Wasp hive in a hole

There are wasps that settle along the roads.

The nest of public wasps is large, so they are responsible for choosing a place, taking into account everything:

• privacy - the place should be secluded enough so that no one disturbs the insects;
• protection from wind and precipitation - paper is still not a stone and withstands weather disasters poorly;
• protection from sunlight - excessive overheating will be harmful to the larvae.

So suitable places for the nests of social wasps, not so much.

Public wasps making a beehive in the attic of a house

They hang them from walls, cornices or the ceiling in the attic, and in their absence they settle on shrubs and trees. So do earthen social wasps, but they build similar structures underground.

A colony of social wasps is created anew every year, since most individuals cannot withstand frost during the winter and die. But this does not mean that the queen will necessarily build a new nest.

She may well use the old, completing and updating it. Therefore, sometimes you can stumble upon nests of giants that exist in one place for more than one year.

Conclusion

The world of insects is diverse. Many of them have a strict hierarchy.

Uniting in a community, they clearly distribute their roles and quite responsibly approach the formation of their own home.

Wasps learned how to get cellulose much earlier than humans and successfully use it to build thoughtful and comfortable nests.

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