Woodside

  VI.

  _WASPS AND THEIR WAYS._

  "An elegant shape is yours, Sir Wasp, And delicate is your wing;Your armour is brave, in black and gold; But we do not like your sting."--C. H.

  The next morning Jack went to see how the new hive had settled, and hefound everything going on as usual. The bees were very busy, flying inand out, and working hard to build the cells of their new home.

  The gardener was working near, and he said, "Master Jack, did you eversee a wasp's nest?"

  Jack shook his head.

  "Well, now, if you come into my cottage, I'll show you one this evening.It's not a very good one, for it got broken digging it out of the groundin one of the garden paths. We'd been terribly plagued with wasps forweeks, and it was some time before we could find the nest. We watchedthem go into a hole in the ground; so one evening when they'd all goneto bed we got some pitch and brimstone, and laid them with some lightedsticks on the top of the hole. The wasps woke up, and came out to seewhat was going on; but they were smothered by the brimstone smoke, andwere soon done for. The next day we dug out the nest.

  "Wasps are great pests, Master Jack, I can tell you. They are very fondof honey, and they go into the bee-hives to steal it, especially whenthe mornings and evenings get cool, and the bees are not watching at theholes of their hives, because they've gone inside to keep themselveswarm.

  "The wasps spoil a lot of fruit. If there's one peach finer thananother, they know it; and as for the plums, green-gages in particular,why, they are as mad after them as the birds are for the cherries. Whatwith the caterpillars and slugs being after the vegetables, and thebirds and the wasps making such havoc with the fruit, I wonder sometimeshow we ever get any for ourselves."

  "There always seems plenty of fruit and vegetables, though," said Jack.

  "Well, yes," said the gardener, "maybe. The birds do help us withcaterpillars and slugs, I'm bound to own; and then we are always on thelook-out to destroy wasps: and as to the birds, I dodge them withnetting; and sometimes we take the nests out of the fruit-trees, as muchas to tell them to go elsewhere."

  That evening Jack went into the gardener's cottage and saw the wasp'snest. It looked like the cells of bees made in whity-brown paper.

  "What is it made of?" asked Jack; "it isn't wax."

  "Well, I've heard that the wasp, which has very strong jaws, bites bitsof wood off posts and rails, and moistens them by chewing them into akind of paper, and then makes a comb of it like what you see here."

  "I wish I had seen this wasp's nest taken."

  "No, Master Jack; why, you'd be in bed at that time: besides, I don'tsuppose your grandmamma would have let you go, even if you had beenhere, for you might have been stung. It's rather a touchy job, is takinga wasp's nest,--very different from hiving bees; we give them a home,but we take one from the wasps.

  "If the queen bee falls into the new hive, the bees are rightenough--they are sure to go where she is; but the wasps are naturallyangered and frightened at being suffocated out of their home. So, I say,keep clear of wasps' nests; those jobs are best done on the quiet."

  "Was anybody stung when this nest was taken?"

  "Yes, your grandma was. She's naturally curious about such things, andcame with your grandpa to see the sight. One half-stupified waspsettled on her hair, and she didn't know it; but after she got back tothe house it revived a bit and moved, and she, not knowing what it was,touched it, and it stung her badly on the top of her head. I don't thinkwasps will sting unless they are touched; but they are such creepythings that you don't always know where they are, and you are apt totouch them without meaning to do so."

  The next morning at breakfast Jack was talking about the wasp's nestthat he had seen on the evening before at the gardener's cottage.Grandma remarked, "There is a kind of wasp called the mason wasp, whichbores holes several inches deep in sand-banks. The inside of this longnarrow passage is covered with a gummy paste which the wasp makes withher mouth. Here she lays her eggs, and then brings some greencaterpillars into the holes, ready for the young wasps to eat when theycome out of the egg. Then she closes the holes by a ball of sand, sothat nothing can get in to eat the young grub. Sometimes these waspschoose a brick wall instead of a sand-bank for their eggs.

  "A friend of mine watched one of these wasps in a wall in her garden.She saw the wasp go into a small round hole in the mortar between thebricks. After a few minutes she walked out of the hole, turned round,and went in again backwards. There she stayed, her little horns andbright eyes being all that could be seen of the wasp. My friend tried tomake the wasp come out of the hole, but nothing could move her; so thenshe had to go away, but not before she had put a mark by the spot.

  "The next morning she went back to the wall and found the wasp had gone,and had carefully and cleverly covered up her hole with what looked likemortar.

  "The lady then took a pen-knife and scraped away this door to the hole.She then put in a fine crochet-hook, and out tumbled no fewer thanfifteen small green living caterpillars. At last, quite at the back ofthe hole, she found a small oval thing, something like an ant's egg,only more transparent. That was the wasp's egg; and the caterpillarswere for its food when it was hatched, which would be in about threeweeks."

  "Don't wasps make honey?" asked Annie.

  "No; the common wasp feeds her very young grubs upon the sweet juice ofripe fruit; in fact they like fruit over-ripe, and that is why theychoose plums and pears and peaches that have fallen down to the ground.It is dangerous to eat any ripe fruit that has fallen, without firstlooking to see if there is a wasp inside it.

  "But the young wasps soon want green caterpillars and flies to eat, andmany a blue-bottle fly is killed by wasps."

  "If wasps don't store up honey for the winter, what do they live uponwhen there are no insects about?" asked Mary.

  "When the fruit is all gone, and the nights get cold, about thebeginning of October, then some instinct tells them what to do, for onlya few of them live through the winter.

  "The wasps cease to bring in any more food for the young. They tear openthe cells and expose the young grubs to the weather, when they die, orthe birds eat them. Generally they pinch them to death, for they willnot let them live to die of starvation; and while they are in this statethey do not feel pain. So what looks like cruelty is really kindness.

  "The full-grown wasps soon become sleepy with cold and die off, all butthe few which live to be the mothers of the wasps next year."