Bald faced hornets! March 3, 2009 3:24 pm 
Beekeeping, Inspiration, Movie Reviews

One of the cool things about being a beekeeper is that people know you go for stuff like this.

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Our friend Judy found this gorgeous wasps’ nest in the tree by her front door in Boulder last year. She was kind enough not to poison it and let it hang outside as hair-raising entertainment all summer long. (Brave woman!) We collected it after the wasps died naturally in the fall.

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My first impulse, once we got it home, was to cut it open! (I’m terribly curious to see what it looks like inside. Aren’t you?) But the wavy patterns in the paper, and the inclusion of twigs and leaves into the body of the nest are so beautifully made, I’ve yet to bring myself to take it apart.

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In the BBC costume drama Wives and Daughters there’s a scene where the romantic lead, a budding naturalist, brings a wasps’ nest home to his steadfast love interest Molly. It’s a powerful image, the empty paper nest. A gray vessel; round, rattling; full of phantom stings.

UPDATE 3/4/09
These are most likely bald faced hornets, not paper wasps. Have changed title accordingly.

7 Comments »
Hylla Evans wrote March 4, 2009 @ 1:30 am

Laura,
How is the nest made? I’m clueless but it doesn’t look like the wasp nests we used to get in Connecticut. It’s beautiful! One shot appears like the Scream character from Edvard Munch.

Laura wrote March 4, 2009 @ 1:51 pm

Yes! It’s like this nest modeled for the Scream. ;)

I just found out these are bald faced hornets. They make paper by chewing up wood fragments & mixing them into a paste with their saliva. The outer skin of the nest you see here is one of many, many layers wound in a spiral formation around a core of comb. At the center I’d expect to find a collection of hexagonal paper combs, each about the size of my hand, similar to what I’d find in a beehive.

Lainie wrote March 4, 2009 @ 3:24 pm

Just looking at the photo of the nest strikes fear in me — I have very serious reactions to wasp stings, and had a nest right outside my door last year. When the wasps started to get aggressive in late summer, I was stung several times. That nest looks huge (and somewhat evil) to me!

Laura wrote March 4, 2009 @ 4:41 pm

Oh! You poor thing. I agree, there’s something ominous about these images, especially if they remind you of a sting.

Hylla Evans wrote March 4, 2009 @ 9:41 pm

It’s quite demoralizing that we humans can’t make anything out of chewing except poo. We need tools to do any kind of creating. There’s something inferior about that.

Laura wrote March 6, 2009 @ 2:35 pm

Hylla! You made me laugh.

There’s gotta be something. I will think on it.

…

How about chicha?

http://patrick8448.blogspot.com/2008/03/chicha-corn-spit-beer.html

Hylla Evans wrote March 8, 2009 @ 1:20 am

I rest my case. We are useless creatures, barely adept at appreciating nature’s magnificence.
Some people who won’t eat in fast food places because they think somebody may have spit in the food. Did the Incas have such paranoia? Is that how they came to invent the chicha?
Oy.

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