Weird Wasp Facts Since It Is The Summer: Part Two

• Here are the rest of the weird wasp facts.

Wasp Facts Since It Is The Summer: Part One can be read by following the link. This is part two.

• The queen selects the location for the nest. 
• Wasps grow into adults in about a week.
• At a week old, otherwise known as an adult, the wasps take over the work of finding food and making the nest bigger. 
• Nests of social wasps are made of strong paper pulp, like papier-mache. 
• Wasp nests are pale brown, gray or white, depending on the type of wood the wasps use to make the pulp. 
• The worker wasps enlarge the best all summer and it can grow to the size of a soccer ball. 
• The bottom has the entrance where the workers fly in and out all day. 
• A wasp colony is like a town. All the wasps have their own jobs. This is one fun fact when it comes to weird wasp facts.
• Some wasps search for food and bring it back to the nurses, who feed and tend the grubs. 
• Other wasps clean the nest, some create clean cells for more of the queen’s eggs, and others are builders, always adding flours to the nest. 
• The queen controls the nest by producing special chemical smells that are passed between the workers so everyone knows what to do.
• Nests can contain  cells and house 2,000 workers. 
• Like all insects, wasps are cold-blooded creatures.
• A wasps body is warm or cold depending on the temperature of its surroundings. 
• When wasps are cold, they cannot be active or move around. They need to warm themselves in the sun before they can go about their day.
• Worker and drone wasps die off as winter approaches. This is the most sad of all the weird wasp facts.
• Some wasp species use different materials or build nests with weird and wonderful shapes. 
• Some wasps use mud to build their nests while others use sharp paper spines. 
• Prickly cover nests can last for 30 years. 
• There are wasp nests with no outer cover to protect the grubs inside. There are nursery cells surrounded by guard cells.
• Some wasps are loners and will build a nest just for their young.
• Female sand and digger wasps will make a little burrow in the soil. 
• Potter wasps build tiny clay pots, underground or hanging from a twig. 
• Other wasps make no home at all, for themselves or their young. They may lay their eggs on a slow moving insect like a caterpillar. Once the eggs hatch, the caterpillar is eaten alive by the wasp grubs. These wasps are called parasites and help farmers by killing large numbers of pesky insects that harm their crops. 
• Farmers may even introduce the wasps to their crops to help kill pests instead of spraying their fields with chemicals. What a great way to use wasps for both what they need and what we need and one of the greatest of the weird wasp facts.
• Wood wasps are the green beans of the wasp world with long, slim bodies.
• Female wood wasps gave long stingers like fine needles. 
• Wasps and bees help by carrying pollen from one flower to another. 
• A hoverfly’s wasp-like markings trick birds and other enemies into leaving them alone.
• The wood wasp’s skinny stinger is strong enough to penetrate even the hardest wood.

What did you think of all these weird wasp facts? For more articles like this, let me know in the comments!

For more on wasps friend the bee, read New Mexico Man Finds 15,000 Bees in His Car.