63 replies to this topic

[dermy]

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

Trust me he's not coming on here  

 

 

He's not as nice as you think...... 

[Connectimyrmex]

Oh.. Well okay! I guess he prefers a different kind of wasp (paper wasps and stuff instead of ants )
Have you met him?



Here's my update for today:
I saw a new vespula queen on my school window, but when I returned for her with a container she was gone. Now I really have to keep an eye on that window.

[Connectimyrmex]

My Vespula germanica queen seems naturally tame. I occasionally take her out to feed her and when I do she just sits in my hand. If she does fly off my hand, she often will land pretty close to me.

[Connectimyrmex]

Weird news... My V. germanica queen chewed out of her tube, and I found her hibernating in my backpack while I was packing my homework... I put her back in the tube, but now the tube has a tinfoil plug.

[Connectimyrmex]

Believe it or not, I just caught THREE new Vespula germanica queens at school today! One of them chewed out of its ziploc baggie in my backpack, and it flew out when I was getting homework. No one saw it except for a girl who sat across from me, and I could tell that she was saying "WTH" in her mind. Since YJ queens are pretty blindly attracted to light, it wasn't hard to catch her.

[Connectimyrmex]

Sadly, the only remaining V. maculifrons colony in my yard (the defender from the invasive V. germanica and V. vulgaris) was destroyed by a black bear overnight. Thankfully, it looks like some of the workers, queens, males, and foundresses survived the attack. I saw a few scouting workers emerge from the nest. Perhaps they are rebuilding the nest in a new cavity? I just hope that they manage to settle down before their winter death.

[Antking117]

Pictures Please

[Connectimyrmex]

I'll upload some soon. Are iphone photos okay?

Also, one of the new queens seemed to have disfunctional wings, and they molded overnight. I ended up clipping them off. I'm still going to try to raise her. She might die anyway, because I found her on her back. She also has never shown me her stinger once, which is kind of strange for V. germanica (my other queens all flash their stingers at me when I tap their hibernation tupperware).

[dermy]

Well most people wait till spring, since hibernating wasps is a pain and most end up dying anyway. Spring [as long as you get nice cold winters] also ensures any wasps you find at the start of spring are almost always queens.

[Connectimyrmex]

True, its just that there are so many queens that I can't stop collecting

 

Surprisingly, the wingless queen made a comeback. She drank some honey and is now running around her pre-hibernation tupperware. The other three wasps are hibernating in the fridge.

[dermy]

how are you hibernating them? you can't just put them in a bare container in your fridge. They need some form of substrate to help them survive.

[Connectimyrmex]

Don't worry, I let them spend three days constructing little chambers in coconut fiber and crumpled and dampened tissue paper. I've been checking on them daily. For some reason, only one of the queens has done the wing-hiding tuck, and the rest just dropped into hibernation with their wings up.

Also, do you know if I should continue to add water throughout the winter? Also is it possible to take wasp queens out of hibernation in January?

Edited by Connectimyrmex, October 24 2017 - 3:52 PM.

[Connectimyrmex]

My wingless queen is now hand tame. I let her sit on my hand when I did my homework today. I'm trying to figure out how to set up her nest box next year... Should I add more sticks/climbing surfaces, or should I just not have her build a nest?

[Connectimyrmex]

I just caught two new queens. I think that (after hibernation) I will only keep the healthiest queen, because the species' nests get far too large and the species isn't polygynous. 

 

Should I use Maculifrons' Yellow Jacket setup style or should I adapt a terrarium into a Yellow Jacket founding setup?

Also, I'm probably going to release these queens if I find a healthy Polistes queen next year. I'm still going to keep my little wingless queen, though. 
I decided that I'm going to try to raid wild V. germanica and V. maculifrons founding nests for small portions of brood comb to "brood boost" my wingless queen. I might even keep one of the winged queens just to provide the wingless queen with brood and workers.

[Connectimyrmex]

I caught three new queens. I could have caught five today, but the two queens were on the ceiling. Seriously, I keep on finding so many Vespula germanica queens but no Vespula maculifrons or Polistes sp queens! I hope that I find a native species soon...

I also saw a Bombus queen outside, and she flew away before I even considered catching her.

[Connectimyrmex]

I caught a Bombus (queen?) species of some sort today.

[MegaMyrmex]

Oh man now I really want to try keeping wasps as pets...For the wingless queen try offering her a dead caterpillar(if it's hairy then use Gloves or tweezers!) in front of her. Good luck! I've always wanted to try nd keep them...

[Connectimyrmex]

The wingless queen is in hibernation. I already tried feeding her caterpillars, and she ignored every one of them (she just chugged a ton of honey) and I know to not touch hairy ones .

[Connectimyrmex]

Now I have 13 Vespula germanica queens. I'm going to release 10 of them in the spring.

I saw a massive Polistes dominula mating swarm around a tree in my yard (with fifteen males and two queens dodging all of them), but I was only able to catch a male. Numerous Polistes metricus males have been settling on the windows of my house. I kind of want to catch Polistes dominula because of their fancy coloration and small size. The only problem is that their nests grow larger than P. metricus nests. Since I'll probably have both available to me in the spring, which species should I go after?

Also, honeybees have been taking over my rosebushes. I found one C. pennsylvanicus worker lying on a flower with a stinger embedded in its gaster (perhaps it tried to attack a honeybee). The bumblebees and bald faced hornets have become increasingly rare due to the winter chills. The paper wasps have their nests in most of my neighborhood's attics, so they might survive a bit longer in the warmth. Most of the V. maculifrons nests in my yard were killed by the first frost, but one is still alive.

[Connectimyrmex]

Okay, I now have twenty-seven Vespula germanica queens. I also have three Polistes fuscatus queens (one with a large gaster dent, one with dark coloration, and one with light coloration). I'm going to give the lighter colored one to ctantkeeper.

 

The Polistes queens have some pretty impressive stingers! They seem long enough to go through that little "webbing" area between your thumb and your pointer finger!