[NatureNS] Missing wasp nest.

Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2012 18:46:04 -0300
From: <duartess@ns.sympatico.ca>
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
Cc: Mary Macaulay <marymacaulay@hotmail.com>
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Do you mean they eat the nest material & recycle it, or, they eat the eggs and larva & then re-locate? Regardless, this is very interesting! Wonder if other social insects that build these community type nests, do this too.

Gayle MacLean
Dartmouth

---- Mary Macaulay <marymacaulay@hotmail.com> wrote: 
> 
> I think the wasps also cannibalize their nest and reuse if they move.  That's the most likely scenario.
>  From: john.kearney@ns.sympatico.ca
> To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
> Subject: RE: [NatureNS] Missing wasp nest.
> Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2012 09:19:59 -0300
> 
> I’ve had racoons tear into the fake wasp nets that I put on my deck to keep the wasps from building nests close to people. From: naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca [mailto:naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca] On Behalf Of Paul MacDonald
> Sent: August 13, 2012 09:05
> To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
> Subject: Re: [NatureNS] Missing wasp nest. Hi DaveI too have noted a few faintly concentric grey shreds marking wherea wasps nest has been. I often wondered if they disassembled the nestand move somewhere else. I would think making the paper for thenest would be quite energy demanding and recycling the paperwould be quite efficient.Have a sting free summerPaul  From: David & Alison Webster <dwebster@glinx.com>
> To: NatureNS@chebucto.ns.ca 
> Sent: Sunday, August 12, 2012 10:22:33 PM
> Subject: [NatureNS] Missing wasp nest.
> 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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