When I was young, I disturbed a nest of ground bees (as my grandfather called them) in a field in northern Michigan. The angry insects (they weren’t bees, but social wasps, aka yellow jackets) followed me as I ran screaming away, and stung me 13 times. Since then, I’ve had more stings, and they’ve bothered me when we eat outside in late summer. Beekeepers have told me that yellow jackets prey on their honeybees. Suffice it to say I, like most people, didn’t care for wasps.
I’m here to say there’s more to wasps than yellow jackets. Much more. (Even yellow jackets are not entirely evil.)
A few facts: For all wasps, only the females sting, because it’s the ovipositor (egg layer) that’s modified into a stinger.
Adult wasps only feed on nectar. If they kill other insects, they bring them home to the nest. Its the larvae that are carnivores (see below).
Most wasps are parasitic. That is, they deposit eggs into other insect or spider or centipede nurseries, and use those eggs and larvae as food as they develop. They control the balance in the arthropod world.
Wasps pollinate things, including orchids and figs*. They control other pests. They have symbiotic relationships with trees and plants. And they can be gorgeous. Here are three I’ve seen and appreciated recently.
The blue mud dauber wasp is also known as a Black Widow Killer because … you guessed it. I didn’t get a good picture of this one from the side, so I couldn’t see its wasp waist and it took me a while to identify it. It was more flashy blue in person.
Ichneumon wasps are awkward flyers. They have oversized abdomens and long dangly legs and they flap around hardly able to hold those things up. Therefore, none of my pictures are stellar. All the wasps in this family use their long ovipositors to lay eggs in wood. This one is a male because there’s no spiny end on the abdomen. It was surprisingly large, but not threatening because it was such a spaz in the air.
I’m still researching this one but I think it’s a braconid wasp. It’s a parasitoid, and it’s a female, because of the ovipositor. It may be a kind that preys on Emerald Ash Borer larvae. EABs are invasive beetles that kill ash trees. Regardless of what species she is, I was happy to catch her in flight.
As for the photo at the top, I’m still trying to identify it as well. You see? There are so many wasps that are lovely and do good things, yet nearly all the information online is about how to kill (mostly) yellow jackets. Harrumph.
*The fig relationship is amazing. Each type of fig tree, and there are more than 1,000, has a unique species of wasp to pollinate it. One would not survive without the other. The tiny female wasp enters the flower, which is inside the fruit, and lay eggs. The resulting young females leave, pollinating other figs as they go, and mom and the sons never see the sun. Yes, they die inside the fig. No, you don’t eat them, as was shared extensively online a few years ago. An enzyme digests the insects entirely. So I guess the fig eats them.
More reading: https://www.treehugger.com/animals/why-we-should-learn-love-wasps.html
Ticklehead 