Handbook of Nature-Study · Lesson XCIX · Topic 16: Wasps and bees
99. The yellow-jacket
Goal: Your child can explain how wasps make paper from wood, describe the inside of an empty paper nest, and tell what happens to a wasp colony in winter.
You'll need
- An empty paper wasp nest, collected by an adult in winter (or a nature center's nest, or good pictures)
- Scissors (for the adult)
- A weathered wooden fence or porch rail
- A hand lens (magnifying glass)
- A nature notebook and a pencil (colored pencils if you have them)
What's in the book
Comstock's story of the yellow-jackets that shared her family's meals at their summer camp: their nervous ways, how they chew wood into paper, build their nests in layers, care for their young, and die off in fall except the young queens. Then Lesson XCIX's leading thought, method and eleven questions.
The lesson, step by step
When and where
Study a nest in winter, after several hard freezes, when the colony has died and only an empty nest is left. In summer, watch yellow-jackets only where they already come, from a few steps away, and keep well away from any nest, including holes in the ground with wasps going in and out.
Safety first
Only an adult takes down an old nest, and only in winter. Never poke, mow near or throw things at a nest in summer. Sting safety: watch bees and wasps from a few steps away, move slowly, and never swat at them. If anyone in the family is allergic to stings, keep well back and have their medicine with you.
Comstock suggests putting out a dish of sweetened fruit to bring yellow-jackets close. Skip that if anyone is allergic; it is not needed for this lesson.
Keep the big idea in mind
Comstock's "leading thought" is the one idea the lesson is meant to lead to. Read it to yourself now, and save it to share at the end, after your child has looked and answered:
The wasps were the original paper makers, using wood pulp for the purpose. Some species construct their houses of paper in the trees or bushes while others build in the ground.
Paper from wood
Of what is the nest made? Where did the wasp get the material? How do the wasps make wood into paper?
Is the covering of the nest all of the same color? Do these differences in color give you any idea of how the wasps build the paper into the nest? Does the paper tear more easily one way than another?
Feel a weathered wooden fence: wasps scrape it with their jaws, leaving pale lines.
Inside the nest
Have the adult cut away one side of the covering with scissors, as Comstock's method says.
How many combs or stories are there in the wasp house? How are they fastened together and how suspended?
Do the cells open upward or downward? For what purpose are the combs in the wasp-nest used? Are all the cells of the same size?
Winter
Do wasps store food to sustain them during the winter? What happens to them during winter? Is the same nest used year after year.
Then read the leading thought aloud.
Nature notebook
Draw the nest cut open, showing the paper layers of the covering and the combs hanging one below another. Tape in a tiny piece of the nest's paper if it crumbles off.
Answers to the book's problems
Wasps chew bits of dry wood and mix them with saliva into a pulp, which dries as paper. The colony does not store food for winter: the workers and the old queen die in the fall, and only the young queens survive, hidden under bark or logs. Each spring a queen starts a new nest; the old nest is not used again.
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.