Friday, April 14, 2006
Settled in
The queen has so far adapted well. I have set up the enclosure simply, with a lining of paper towel at the bottom, several pieces of different types of wood and tree bark and a type of jelly as supplementary food. This jelly is high in fruit juice and several types of sugar. It is, in fact, specially formulated for fruit-eating beetles, and in my experience, wasps love it. I can simply slide the cover off and replace the paper towel lining without disturbing the nest; in any case, I usually do this at night. The first photo is a rough view of the nest and the setup.
One pupal cell was damaged during the journey back. The queen later pulled the pupa out, chewing it up and then feeding it to the other larvae! Maybe she knew by instinct that it would rot if left alone too long.
Besides that, she has accepted bits of ham left over from my lunch, offered to her on a toothpick! It is amazing, and I never get tired of feeding these wasps. Here she cuts it up and feeds it to her larvae.
