Licking bees and pulping trees: The reign of a wasp queen - Kenny Coogan
As the April sun rises
on a pile of firewood,
something royal stirs inside.
This wasp queen is one of thousands
who mated in late autumn
and hibernated through the winter.
Now she emerges into the spring air
to begin her reign.
Most of her sisters weren’t so lucky.
While hibernating in compost piles
and underground burrows,
many sleeping queens
were eaten by spiders.
Warm winters caused by climate change
led other queens to emerge early,
only to find there was no available food.
And some queens that survived the winter
fell victim to the threats of spring,
such as carnivorous plants, birds,
and manmade pesticides.
Our queen is the lone survivor
of her old hive, and now,
she must become
the foundress of a new one.
But first, breakfast.
The queen heads for a citrus grove
full of honeybee hives.
The bees can be dangerous if provoked,
but right now they’re paralyzed
by the morning cold.
Their hairy bodies are dripping
with sugar water from an earlier feeding,
and the resourceful queen
licks them for a morning snack.
Newly energized, our queen searches
for a safe nesting area.
This tree hollow, safe from rain, wind,
and predators, is ideal.
She chews the surrounding wood
and plant fibers
to make a paper-like pulp.
Then she builds around 50 brood cells
that comprise the beginning of her nest.
Using sperm stored from last fall,
the queen lays a fertilized egg
into each cell,
producing as many as 12 in 20 minutes.
Within a week,
these will hatch into female larva.
But until then, the queen must hunt down
smaller insects to feed her brood,
all while expanding the hive, laying eggs,
and defending against intruders.
Fortunately, our queen is well prepared.
Unlike bees, wasps can sting as many times
as they need to.
With such a busy schedule,
the queen barely has time to feed herself.
Luckily, she doesn’t have to.
When she feeds an insect to her grubs,
they digest the bug into a sugary
substance that sustains their mother.
By the end of July, these first larva
have matured into adult workers,
ready to take on foraging,
building, and defense.
The queen can now lay eggs full-time,
sustaining herself on her worker’s spoils
and their unfertilized eggs.
Although each worker only lives
for roughly 3 weeks,
the queen’s continuous egg-laying
swells their ranks.
In just one summer,
the nest reaches the size of a basketball,
supporting thousands of workers.
Such a large population needs to eat,
and the nearby garden
provides a veritable buffet.
As the swarm descends,
alarmed humans try to swat them.
They even fight back with pesticides
that purposefully poison wasps,
and inadvertently impact
a wide-range of local wildlife.
But the wasps are actually vital
to this ecosystem.
Sitting at the top
of the local invertebrate food chain,
these insects keep spiders, mites,
and centipedes, in check.
Wasps consume crop-eating insects,
making them particularly helpful
for farms and gardens.
They even pollinate fruits and vegetables,
and help winemakers
by biting into their grapes
and jump-starting fermentation.
This feast continues until autumn,
when the foundress changes course.
She begins grooming some eggs
into a new generation of queens,
while also laying unfertilized eggs
that will mature into reproductive males
called drones.
This new crop of queens and males
requires more food.
But with summer over,
the usual sources run dry,
and the foraging wasps
start taking more aggressive risks.
By September,
the hive’s organization deteriorates.
Hungry workers no longer clean the nest
and various scavengers move in.
Just when it seems
the hive can no longer sustain itself,
the fertile queens and their drones
depart in a massive swarm.
As the days grow colder,
the workers starve,
and our queen
reaches the end of her lifespan.
But above, a swarm of reproductive wasps
has successfully mated.
The males die off shortly after,
but the newly fertilized queens are ready
to find shelter for their long sleep.
And this woodpile looks like
the perfect place to spend the winter.
