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.
