Abstract
THE following observations on a colony of Vespa norwegica are perhaps deserving of record. About the middle of July a relative living at East Liss, Hants, endeavoured to take for me a nest of this tree-wasp, but was forced to beat a retreat after merely bending the branch of the rhododendron to which the nest was attached. The effect of this bend was to throw the nest permanently out of its original position, and to incline the combs within it at a considerable angle to the horizontal plane in which they had, as always, been built. On July 28 the nest was successfully captured, and forwarded to me, together with such of its inmates as happened to be at home at the moment of capture. The combs were five in number; the three upper were each of about four inches in diameter; the fourth smaller and of irregular shape, there being a patch of small, misshapen cells placed obliquely on one margin. The position of the fifth comb was very remarkable; it was attached, not to the fourth, but to the third comb; and, moreover, instead of hanging parallel to the other combs, it was set at a decided angle to them, the angle being such that it lay in the true horizontal plane, from which the others had been displaced. It is thus evident that the worker wasps are able to discriminate between oblique and horizontal positions with some nicety. This fifth comb had obviously been built since the disturbance of the nest; it consisted of but twenty-five small, though regularly hexagonal cells, and it is probable that the patch of irregular cells added to the edge of the fourth comb was of similar date, and represents an attempt to regain the horizontal plane for that comb. The queen had also been affected by the disturbance of the nest, for she had laid two, and frequently three, eggs in many, of the cells of the second and third combs, instead of the normal one egg only. There were no eggs in any of the cells of the oddly-placed fifth comb, nor in the patch of irregular cells on the edge of the fourth. The absence of eggs from these cells points to all workers being sterile up to the time when the nest was taken. Within the nest as I received it were several dozen drones, two workers, and the queen; the majority of the workers must have been afield when the nest was removed.
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LATTER, O. Remarkable Nest of “Vespa norwegica,” and Fertility of Workers of this Species. Nature 96, 59 (1915). https://doi.org/10.1038/096059b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/096059b0
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