My bright blue wasp nest

[XxMochiixX]

Decided to give some of the Polistes colonies a choice between their usual plain cardboard, and white, black or blue construction paper as nesting material.

Clearly, they made their preference known.

Black was hardly touched, apart from one small corner at the back of the nest, and they wanted nothing to do with the white paper.
I took out the blue paper and they went back to using cardboard and ignored the other two colors. They even went so far as to smear the blue pulp all around the base of the nest.

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

Wow neat a wasp nest!!! 🪺

 

[XxMochiixX]

A random update: my Polistes dominula has also taken a liking to the stuff, it seems like this color preference is pretty widespread across the genus!

 

[Tentacle Toast]

That's actually fascinating...thank you for sharing this.
I just bought a 3D printed faux hive that I'm going to hang on the back corner of my barn/garage, where I've had wasps nest. Apparently they're territorial, & are reluctant to build if they think others have beaten them to it.
But now I almost want to mash up a bunch of blue construction paper, & have the real ones build me a funky nest...

Are you going to experiment with different shades of blue?

 

[Ratmosphere]

That's so dope!

 

[katamari]

Even though I'm still overcoming my childhood phobia of waspy things, this is awesome. From a safe distance. On my phone.

 

[XxMochiixX]

That's actually fascinating...thank you for sharing this.
I just bought a 3D printed faux hive that I'm going to hang on the back corner of my barn/garage, where I've had wasps nest. Apparently they're territorial, & are reluctant to build if they think others have beaten them to it.
But now I almost want to mash up a bunch of blue construction paper, & have the real ones build me a funky nest...

Are you going to experiment with different shades of blue?

Those would be a pretty good dererrent, i've never seen two different species nest anywhere near each other. Old abandoned hives are also usually filled with parasitic moths, so it's understandable they would pick somewhere else to nest!

I really want to try dark and light blue and see if they have a preference. It sort of makes sense that they didn't like the black or white material, a black nest in the wild might absorb too much heat and cook the brood, and a white one would pretty much be a predator magnet. As for why they like blue so much.. i have no idea, but there are quite a few pics online of blue nests from various wasp species, including one made out of pool foam of all things

 

[Tentacle Toast]

Those would be a pretty good dererrent, i've never seen two different species nest anywhere near each other. Old abandoned hives are also usually filled with parasitic moths, so it's understandable they would pick somewhere else to nest!

I really want to try dark and light blue and see if they have a preference. It sort of makes sense that they didn't like the black or white material, a black nest in the wild might absorb too much heat and cook the brood, and a white one would pretty much be a predator magnet. As for why they like blue so much.. i have no idea, but there are quite a few pics online of blue nests from various wasp species, including one made out of pool foam of all things

Well if you do a follow-up, please post about it, will you? In the meantime, I'm searching for blue hives...that's absolutely wild, LoL

 

[XxMochiixX]

Well if you do a follow-up, please post about it, will you? In the meantime, I'm searching for blue hives...that's absolutely wild, LoL

I'll definitely post updates as this goes along! I haven't been lucky enough to see any odd colored nests in the wild yet, but now i'm sort of urged to put up a few nest boxes outside and leave some blue construction paper around nearby to see what happens

 

[XxMochiixX]

A minor update as of tonight: as the larvae grow in the nest, the queens are becoming increasingly protein hungry. They've already started associating the opening of the enclosure with being offered live food, and they'll rush and snatch the cricket from my fingers before it even hits the ground!

The odd thing is they started using the black construction paper as the place to "process" the prey and chew it up before they take it back to the nest. It's gotten quite messy over the past 2 days and is due for a change!