Wasps

The Wingstem flowers are just about spent, so insects in search of pollen have been concentrated onto the few plants that are still blooming.  One of my favorite wasp species, the Double Banded Scoliid, Scolia bicincta, was out in force to gather pollen and nectar.  The name comes from the two bands of white clearly visible on the abdomen.

I’m a fan of animals with black and white patterns.  This one is particularly attractive.

A covering of hairs makes this wasp a pollen magnet.  This species leads a solitary life style with no permanent nest, so the pollen is not collected and stored.  Females lay their eggs on grub type beetle larvae in which the wasp larvae will feed until emerging to pupate.

I rarely see this species anywhere but on flowers.  Since it doesn’t store any of the flower material, everything it eats goes to maintaining a healthy body for mating and laying eggs.

I was sitting on the porch a few hours after taking photos of the wasps on flowers and a black and white wasp buzzed in and nearly hit me in the face.  As she went past I could see that she was holding something in her jaws.  She disappeared with her burden into an abandoned Carpenter Bee nest.  This wasp was a Four-toothed Mason Wasp, Monobia quadridens, a species that creates brood chambers inside available tunnels like those made by Carpenter Bees.  Each chamber is packed with caterpillars and one wasp egg.  Young from this nest probably won’t hatch until next spring.

It’s interesting that Carpenter Bees are not tunneling out new nests on the porch this year, but their old tunnels are being fully utilized by other species.  Grass plugging the entrance to this old tunnel indicates it has been used by a Grass Carrier Wasp.  Similar in habit to other tunnel nesting wasps, the Grass Carrier created a series of tree cricket filled chambers in which its young will develop. 

Wooly Alder Aphid

I have a patch of Common Alder shrubs upon which the Wooly Alder Aphids seasonally appear. I check the aphid colonies every summer in hopes of finding Harvester butterflies whose larvae feed upon the aphids. So far, I’ve not found any of the butterflies, but I always enjoy watching the aphids.

Wooly Alder Aphids overwinter as eggs on Silver Maples and begin their colonies there in the spring. The aphids mature into winged adults on the maples and then fly off to establish colonies on alders. By the end of summer the aphid colonies may contain hundreds of individuals. In the fall, mature aphids leave the alders and return to the Silver Maples to lay eggs.

Wooly Aphids produce long waxy strands that resemble silky hairs. As the aphids grow and molt, the shed skins clump together into brown masses.

Like other aphid species, Wooly Aphids secrete a sweet liquid known as honeydew. The honeydew accumulates on leaves and branches below the aphid colony Sooty mold often grows on the honeydew and forms a thick, black covering.

Many species of insects visit the aphid colonies to collect the sweet honeydew. This is the Four-toothed Mason Wasp, Monobia quadridens, a black and white wasp which commonly feeds on nectar. It is a predator on caterpillars which it seals into nest chambers to feed developing larvae. I’ve never seen these wasps act aggressively, but they are often swatted because people mistake them for a Bald-faced Hornet.

Flies are always attracted to sugar water, so the honeydew covered leaves bring in a number of different fly species. I do find it odd that I never find any ants near the Wooly Aphids. Every other honeydew producing insect at Blue Jay Barrens is accompanied by ants, but not Wooly Aphids.

There are about a dozen Common Alders growing in this corner of an old crop field. They were planted here 25 years ago. I keep hoping that a Harvester butterfly will find them and their aphids. I’ll keep looking.