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Dear All, Aug 12, 2012
Would any animal, other than humans, carry a wasp nest away ?
While loading wood on July 22, I got stung by yellow-jackets 3-4 times
before locating the nest [~8" diameter attached to debris on the ground , 5'
from the woodpile & 3' from the truck] by which time there was a fairly
large swarm over the nest so I retreated.
When I hauled the remainder of this tier on July 26, taking care not to
drop wood or otherwise disturb them, they were still active (Yellow-jackets
coming & going) but I noticed some large black wasps flying to but not
entering the nest and this seemed strange unless the nest was being
abandoned and stragglers were being picked off (did not see this).
I was by there today (Aug 12) and stopped to show this nest to someone
but found only a few faintly concentric grey shreds marking where it had
been attached to the litter. I could see no other fragments of a destroyed
nest nearby and I would expect many fragments if a non-human animal were
involved.
In late May or Early June I noticed a rich coating of honey dew on
nearby groundcover, probably from aphids on Spruce, and tending these Spruce
may have led to founding the nest. But with the dry conditions, honey dew is
long gone.
Balancing the various unknowns, it seems most likely that they just
died out from want, or moved to greener pastures, and some person, finding
the nest to be inactive, decided to take it home as an ornament.
When local conditions become adverse, can wasps have a sufficiently
large range potential to diffuse to areas of better conditions ?
Yours truly, Dave Webaster, Kentville
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