General Wasp Keeper's Information Thread: Volume Two

[LeilaNami]

So far mine haven't taken punctured prey. When I offer it, they start lunging and biting it but won't eat. I dropped in a small live cricket to see if they'll take it since the foundress is still foraging. We also had another worker hatch out today!

 

[Tleilaxu]

From what I gather exclamens is a bit harder to establish, try a flying prey type like a moth. Or caterpillars. Good luck, Also make sure you have some fibrous plant matter as well as sometimes this species uses it too. Pics of your setup would be useful.

 

[bug salamander]

Today has been good so far. The P. fuscatus chewed out the back end of an eastern forest tent caterpiller yesterday and chewed up it's head (and finally killed it) today. The P. annularis queen seems quite a threat to fuscatus as it is much bigger and more aggresive. P. annularis hasn't hunted much, so I went out to look for something to offer it. I brought back a crane fly and gave it to her. She then began chewing it up into a ball. Still no eggs have hatched yet, but both queens are gathering food for those soon to, and storing them carefully in each egg's cell. I'm also thinking of capturing a P. metricus nest so I will be able to observe the behavior of three different species of Polistes. I am curious as to whether or not metricus or annularis is the most aggresive species in my area.

Hopefully I will have pictures to share with you all later on.

 

[LeilaNami]

From what I gather exclamens is a bit harder to establish, try a flying prey type like a moth. Or caterpillars. Good luck, Also make sure you have some fibrous plant matter as well as sometimes this species uses it too. Pics of your setup would be useful.

Thanks! As for fibrous plant matter, are you thinking something like leaves?

We had another worker hatch out. It seems one's emerging every 24 hours so now we're up to three and the foundress. The foundress herself acts a little odd. She seems to stay behind the foam backing (there's a little hole to allow her to get back there) at night and for most of the day. I'm assuming this is because she's not going to be foraging very much anymore now that there are three workers. I threw in a couple of small moths tonight to see if they'll use those instead. I love this species so much as they are incredibly mellow (when away from the nest).

Unfortunately we don't have a camera that can upload pics to the net (no cord). I can borrow my friend's after finals next week though.

 

[Tleilaxu]

More like string grass stems if you can get what i am trying to say. Good luck!

 

[LeilaNami]

Well time for bad news and hopefully good news. I believe I found what was the foundress dead. However, one of the ones that is newly emerged is twice the size of the other two. (The only other thing that could have happened was a worker with a piece of exuvium was still stuck on the wing and they kicked her out but the body nor any of the others have the exuvium stuck to their wing). Hopefully the bigger one is either a male getting ready for a new reproductive female, a newly emerged reproductive female, or the original foundress and the body was that of the worker I mentioned.

EDIT: To add, we have a little one, the smallest of all of them, that acts like a nut every time I open the door to the cage. She kamikazes the door whenever I try to do maintenance.

EDIT: I found this interesting paper on caste determination in Polistes exclamans. http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~evolve/pdf/90-95/fe490.pdf

 

[Tleilaxu]

Typical, there is one nut in every colony.

 

[LeilaNami]

Unfortunately, when we changed their food source of fruit juice to honey and water, they decided to stop eating. We had gotten up to 6 but then they all just started dying until there was none left, even the second queen. They also didn't touch the wood, paper, or plant matter to expand the nest.

 

[H. laoticus]

Unfortunately, when we changed their food source of fruit juice to honey and water, they decided to stop eating. We had gotten up to 6 but then they all just started dying until there was none left, even the second queen. They also didn't touch the wood, paper, or plant matter to expand the nest.

I'm planning on capturing a small nest at my house sometime this week. Sorry for your losses; I will keep that in mind when offering food. I think I'll put in separate caps for juice, honey and also with sugar-water to see which ones my wasps prefer.

 

[H. laoticus]

I have successfully captured the nest and my setup for them is also complete. I have them in an Exo Terra nano I had lying around. They have water and their food sources include honey, sugar water, and some maimed B. lateralis roaches.
Unfortunately, the queen passed away the day after I captured it. I have no idea how or why, but it might be due to her flying into the honey cap although I didn't see this. At first she was fine and was flying around, but the next morning I saw her on the group and looking crippled. Was it her time to pass on? The nest already had 4 workers and also a large amount of grubs.

My questions are: Should I leave the wasps as they are and hope for a new queen to arise? The workers don't seem to be doing much except buzzing around the setup so I'm not sure if they are tending to the nest's grubs. Should I release them then? I also have another starting nest at my house that I can replace this one with.

 

[Louise E. Rothstein]

The wasps that faded away on honey and water might have been getting honey made from the same kind of chemically contaminated nectar that has been linked to "colony collapse disorder" in bees.

Their chemical sensitivities may turn out to be very similar.
As they should be:
Bees and wasps are rather close relatives.

The wasps whose "nectar" tasted like honey must have been processing their nectar in a very beelike manner...if wasps didn't store "bugmeat" in the same "hive" as their "honey" they would interest hobby beekeepers because their more omnivorous diet safeguards them from disaster during years when the seasonal "nectar flows" are low.

But captive wasps that HAVE to eat honey may become easy marks for the same kind of "colony collapse disorder" that plagues modern beekeepers.
Since beekeepers who can "graze" their bees on organic properties report that they can avoid colony collapse disorder by doing so they may be able to offer honey that wasps will NOT "fade away" on.

The specialists who breed bumblebees for pollinating greenhouse exotics whose flowers aren't honeybee friendly have been building "bumblebee hives" that underground wasps might also consider acceptable.

Nobody thought of it.

It is time that we did:
Wasps can be as "trainable" as bees...
AND they can prey on concentrations of insect pests.

The implications are interesting.

Please continue your work with wasps.

 

[Malhavoc's]

The wasps that faded away on honey and water might have been getting honey made from the same kind of chemically contaminated nectar that has been linked to "colony collapse disorder" in bees.

Their chemical sensitivities may turn out to be very similar.
As they should be:
Bees and wasps are rather close relatives.

The wasps whose "nectar" tasted like honey must have been processing their nectar in a very beelike manner...if wasps didn't store "bugmeat" in the same "hive" as their "honey" they would interest hobby beekeepers because their more omnivorous diet safeguards them from disaster during years when the seasonal "nectar flows" are low.

But captive wasps that HAVE to eat honey may become easy marks for the same kind of "colony collapse disorder" that plagues modern beekeepers.
Since beekeepers who can "graze" their bees on organic properties report that they can avoid colony collapse disorder by doing so they may be able to offer honey that wasps will NOT "fade away" on.

The specialists who breed bumblebees for pollinating greenhouse exotics whose flowers aren't honeybee friendly have been building "bumblebee hives" that underground wasps might also consider acceptable.

Nobody thought of it.

It is time that we did:
Wasps can be as "trainable" as bees...
AND they can prey on concentrations of insect pests.

The implications are interesting.

Please continue your work with wasps.

isnt one of the downsides however in the wasp Vs bee debate is wasp nests never do attain the same coloney size? Most wasp nests I have seen are much smaller then a bee hive, I also believe the queens are seasonal which would require restarting the coloney every year.

unfortunatly I just do not see wasps being used anytime soon to replace honeybees perhaps in small green houses but not much more then that.

 

[H. laoticus]

I thought I'd just post the method I used to capture them if anyone is interested:

Items:
1) A plastic container:
http://www.rez-tech.com/images/PlasticContainers-GripItSQ02.jpg

2) A long, thin object such as a knife with a wide head:
http://www.ujknives.com/images/products/unsui_traditional/nakiri.jpg

3) A thin, flat board such as a clipboard:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3tQeAmJhRZ4/TfofjZhsNfI/AAAAAAAAAMw/Wvgnp9RkSOM/s1600/clipboard.jpeg

I went out at night because I wanted all the residents of the nest to be home and I figured they would be mellow and not as alert at this time. The nest was about 10 feet up, so I stood on a chair and cupped the entire nest with the container. I then slid the knife carefully in between the container and the surface the nest was attached to, poking/scraping off the nest. After that, I took the clipboard and slid it in between, covering the container and preventing escape. What you should be holding after all of that is a container on top of a clipboard that has a nest and wasps in it.
Getting my hands on the loosened nest for the setup was easy after that since the wasps stay at the top of the container while the nest is on the ground. By the way, having someone to help hand you the tools makes it very easy. That's about it!

 

[H. laoticus]

Wasp nests update

I now have two wasp nests in their own setups. The first nest I captured that unfortunately lost the queen on the second day is still functional. I see that the workers are eating the food I've placed in there, but I haven't caught any nest building activities. I do, however, spot several growing larvae in the nest. The second nest that I acquired is in a 12x12x12 exo terra tank and this one still has its queen. The wasps from this nest have been active in eating the crickets I've placed in there. A couple of the larvae on this nest are also pupating. I haven't been watching either nest diligently, so that may be why I haven't seen any nest building.

I also found a site that has a live cam on a wasp nest. It's best to watch it during daylight where there's visibility because the owner didn't want to disturb the wasps with any artificial light at night. This nest is pretty large and very active. Thought I'd share it here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/wasp-nest-cam

 

[H. laoticus]

New Worker, New prey

My second wasp nest has produced a new worker today, making a total of 4 wasps on the nest. I also decided to introduce a new prey item because although the crickets were being somewhat eaten, they still put up too much of a fight to be easy prey, despite having their hind legs removed. I also tried flies, but they seemed to like dying in the water sources and mealworms weren't cutting it either. So I placed in 2 waxworms yesterday for both wasp nests and right away, the wasps went to work making a meal out of them. I was very pleased to see this since wax worms are very easy to get a hold of (usually at your local pet store) and they aren't all that expensive, especially when wasps don't require that much food per meal. This morning I placed in two more for each setup and had the same success with feeding. This is great for me since wax worms don't make a mess crawling over the food items and climbing the walls afterwards, decorating the setups with gunk; they stay put and they are easy for the wasps to process.

By the way, I believe my wasps are Polistes exclamans and here they are:

The first nest:

The Second Nest:

 

[H. laoticus]

Rapid Growth

Nest 2 that originally had 3 workers produced 1 new worker yesterday. Today, I have found 2 more workers. They are feeding on the wax worms I've just put in as I type.

Edit: make that 3 workers today instead of 2! That's a total of 7 wasps.

 

[compnerd7]

I was asked to go and take down a large paper wasp nest from a building. I was going to just drown them in CO2, but I decided to keep them instead. This thread was the most helpful, thanks a ton for all this info!!! Should have been a stickied thread.

 

[3skulls]

Anyone still keeping wasp?

I'm thinking of trying them this year.

 

[audax]

I'm trying but confused