63 replies to this topic

[Connectimyrmex]

Hi!
I have always been interested in eusocial wasps and bees, such as bumblebees, yellow jackets, and paper wasps. Now that their nuptial flights are beginning, I'm hoping to catch a queen and rear a colony next spring. I even caught a Yellow Jacket male at my school (he's in my terrarium. For now this journal will be about him). If I catch a wasp queen, I will probably make this into her journal.

 

Here's an adorable yellow jacket video: 

Edited by Connectimyrmex, December 19 2017 - 9:59 AM.

[dermy]

Ah yes Yellow Jacket colonies [Interestingly enough the dude who made that video/kept that colony was the guy who got me into wasps about 9 years ago. I have since stopped due to it being a bad year for wasps [none near me and I don't feel like snooping like I used to in other peoples yards]

 

Wasp keeping is hard! It's much too hard for me to even try getting a queen to nest in Captivity. Take my advice, relocate a nice small nest of 5-7 workers [assuming it's yellow jackets, hornets, and even bumble bees, those are too hard to start too, since you'll need pollen and stuff] 

 

I actually watched in real time all of that Specific Colony going from starting the nest to the day it sadly died, incl. all the Usruptions on a Forum like 9 years ago good times. 

 

With Polistes I have no "real" experience so this is just what I'm going to post:

 

 

 

There used to be a really good guide, but I can't find it anymore  

 

 

If you are after queens, do it in the spring, don't bother catching them now, it's hard to know if they mated, and even harder to hibernate them. Getting them to initiate a nest [yellowjackets at least] are really hard, it's only really recommended for "experienced people" to do that. Polistes is possible and lots of people have had nests start out in Captivity, they don't get very big, they aren't as mean as Yellow-Jackets and you can see the whole nest and it's activities. 

 

Eventually when it's not 4am I'll post "generally" how to relocate a Yellow Jacket nest, but I'm not very skilled on that and it can be dangerous if you don't do it right, or if you are allergic and don't know it.

 

If you don't know, Don't Keep Wasps! 

[Connectimyrmex]

Thanks! I actually was into wasps before I was interested in ants. I always loved Polistes species. My neighborhood has an abundance of Yellowjackets and european paper wasps. I also saw two or three bald faced hornet virgin queens hovering around the other day.

[MegaMyrmex]

What kind of wasps are you looking for? Hornets or wasps? I know exactly how to find queens of both...

[Connectimyrmex]

Hornets are wasps...

I'm looking for Hornets, Yellow Jackets, Paper Wasps, and Bumblebees. I know that the chances of me finding one are pretty slim, so I'm looking for a wide variety.

[Connectimyrmex]

I'm pretty angry about something that happened earlier today at school: I saw a battered and sickly Yellow Jacket virgin queen wandering around, and when I went to pick her up some dumb kid ran up and stepped on her 

[MegaMyrmex]

Look for hibernating bald faced hornets underneath logs during winter. Queen wasps fly to windows and capturing them from there is pretty straight forwards.

[Connectimyrmex]

Thank you! Unfortunately, my backyard just has rocks and crumbly logs. Do you think that I might find queens under rocks?

[Connectimyrmex]

YES! I caught a Yellow Jacket queen mating with a male on the window at my school!

[Connectimyrmex]

She actually just went into hibernation at room temperature! She tucked her wings under her legs, so she kind of looked like a yellow camponotus queen for a second.

[Bracchymyrmex]

Lovely journal, and I am honestly quite fascinated with the prospect of having some jackets as pets, but unfortunately, my yard is infested with wasps and, in our attempts to expel them, we've only drawn in more. We have Vespula pensylvanica who have made a subterranean nest by a stump of an ash tree which was removed less than a year ago and I've seen some European yellow jackets flying around but haven't located their nest. The pensylvanica have grown in numbers over the summer and are dangerously large in size, and we don't want our grass cutters suing us over a sting nor do we want to get stung ourselves (duh). 

 

Anyone know of any harmless and effective methods to entice a nest to move to a different location? Or should we call an exterminator and do the evil deed?

[Connectimyrmex]

The nest will die in a few days (after the first frost). Let it be. If I were you, though, I would flip rocks and logs in the winter and collect as many YJ queens as possible. After you catch all of them, hide them under a rock in a nice grassy place.

 

You can build a decoy hornet nest to scare yellow jackets and paper wasps away.

 

Also, new update: The queen pooped out a weird, stringy white thing (not a parasite). I wonder if its the sperm. She did get interrupted while mating, anyway (When I caught the male and female, they detached. The male died on transit).

If it is, I can easily catch a new male.

Edited by Connectimyrmex, October 17 2017 - 3:15 PM.

[Connectimyrmex]

You can also keep the queens you find as pets. Paper wasps and bald faced hornets are generally easier to tame (by hand feeding), but yellow jackets will normally have to be handfed from extremely early founding stages to be tamed.

[Connectimyrmex]

I caught a new YJ male and an adorable P. fuscatus male!

[Connectimyrmex]

I spotted a couple evil mites on my queen. I gave her a quick spray-bottle bath and now she's all good (ten mites total!)

[MegaMyrmex]

Nice! You need to look under big and I mean BIG logs to find queen hornets. Nowadays if youbare lucky some Vespa europeana queens are flying around. I turned on my porch light to look for bugs and 3 massive european hornet queens came and freaked me out and I ran blindly into my front yard

[Connectimyrmex]

xD that's pretty funny

 

I think I saw a european hornet male in my yard the other day. A Vespula pensylvanica male swooped down and considered mating, but realized that the hornet was a completely wrong gender and species.

[Connectimyrmex]

Turns out my current V. germanica queen isn't fully fertile. She keeps on going in short 1-day hibernation sprees, only to end up buzzing around at nighttime. I caught three new males, and I'll see if she is still in the mood to mate.

[Connectimyrmex]

It seems like the P. fuscatus flights have started. I saw maybe two or three males of that species swooping near my rooftop (I believe that there's a nest there). Does anyone know where Polistes species hibernate?

[Connectimyrmex]

Also, I think that someone should get the wasp god Maculifrons to come to this forum.