Kirk Pulsipher, age 8, of San Diego, California, for his question:
Do all wasps make nests of mud?
Some wasps use mud to mold pretty little vases; other mold packages of tiny tubes. There are hundreds of different wasps and many of them use other materials to build their nests. In some families they use homemade papery material. Others dig tunnels in wood and some mine tunnels in the ground. Many wasps do not bother to build nests at all. They find ready made holes in the ground to lay their eggs. As a rule, these wasps also stuff in a spider or an insect for the young grubs to eat.
Most grown up wasps feed on sap or plant juices. But their growing grubs must eat insects or spiders. The grown ups have many different plans for solving this problem. The big, handsome hornets and yellow jackets share la social life with a large family. They are called the social wasps. The workers chew up dried wood and mold the soggy mixture in flat layers to build cells like honey combs. The dry material forms stiff, sturdy brown paper.
Some social wasps build a flat comb and stick it under a sheltering roof. Others hang a nest like a football on a bough and cover it with a shell of water proof paper. The worker wasps catch insect food, chew it up and serve it to the grubs in the cells.
Hundreds of wasps in other families prefer to live alone. They are called solitary wasps and many of them live very, very busy lives. All by herself, the mother has to choose the right place, find the right material, build her nest and provide food for her grubs. A miner wasp digs a tunnel in the ground. A carpenter wasp digs a neat row of cells in a tree trunk. Each cell holds one egg that hatches into a hungry grub. The mason wasp uses her spit to mix up a moist mortar of dirt and stones. She may plaster it on a stone and when it dries it becomes a very sturdy little nest.
Several different solitary wasps use their saliva to make nests of mud. The potter wasp mixes a moist, muddy paste and molds a neat little jug. Often she fixes a row of her little jugs on a twig. When they dry hard and firm, she lays her eggs in them. The famous mud dauber mixes her muddy paste and molds it into small tunnels. She builds them side by side and plasters the package in a safe place. If you scout around outdoors, you may find a mud dauber's nest on a tree or a post or under the porch roof.
Wasps build different nests of different materials. But all of them change through the same stages of life. When the grubs become sleeping cocoons, they need no more food and the grown wasps depart. Even the social wasps desert their elaborate paper nests in the fall. Only a few wasps live through the winter. They start new families during the next summer season.