Ahh the "joys" of wasp keeping.

[Tleilaxu]

I had a major accident today. So I might as well write about it...

Anyways:

Despite your best efforts accidents happen, today I dropped my cage and the nest detacthed from its platform and took a dive, naturally all the wasps were pissed and to top it off one was hatching at the time. She is alright so anyway I will outline how to deal with this with pics and step by steps.

Anyways here is what you will need.

1. A lot of angry wasps(Atleast 10 otherwise its too easy )
2. An empty cage
3. A glue gun
4. The wasp nest(s)
5. Pill bottles.

Alright here is what you need:

First the cages:

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh195/Polistes/100_0612.jpg

I like keeping the cages close so you can visulaize what you want to do, after all angering your beloved pets in such a manner can rattle you despite the years of experience you have and even then no one likes to see their pets upset.

Then get the nest away from the wasps. In social panics like this their teamwork attitude goes away, and it was fairly easy to ge tthe nest away from everyone. I also am(did) place a larger one next to it to test a theaory that two close wasp colonies will merge together after a time.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh195/Polistes/100_0613.jpg

Unfortunetly while I was panicing and tring to figure out where the glue gun was a larva was killed and eaten, though maybe it would have died anyways due to the fall. I also got a rare underside shot of the feast.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh195/Polistes/100_0614.jpg

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh195/Polistes/100_0615.jpg

Anyways once I figured out what to do(And found my glue gun) I placed the two nests near to eachother(One was abandoned) to see if eventually it will be accepted and used.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh195/Polistes/100_0616.jpg

Now the transferring was the hardest part since they were all riled up and I had one particular worker that was excedingly aggressive. I decided that the best course of action was to remove the cover and place the cage on the bed so as soon as one landed I could liftup the cage and catch it before the others took action.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh195/Polistes/100_0620.jpg

After the nests were dry I began to reintroduce the wasps to their new cage. I released this worker first because she was carrying food for the larva that were likely stressed as well, and as soon as she was reintroduced she went about feeding them, so apparently they can remember their comrades in times of extreme stress.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh195/Polistes/100_0621.jpg

Now they with the exception of one are all settling on their new nest. The remaining one is still a bit dazed but knows where the nest is and I am confident she will find it.

Anyway here is a shot of the majority of the workers and queen settling down.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh195/Polistes/100_0624.jpg

I hope you found this useful, or at least a semi humorous read.

Tleilaxu

 

[apidaeman]

I have on several occasions tranfered a wasp hive from one location to another. I have been quite successful at it so far. I haven't made a practice of keeping them captive but I just move them from an undesired location to a safer one for the wasp.

The is a trick to it if you attempt to simply move the nest and stick it somewhere else you'll simply have a nest with no wasp.