Jeffrey Holt, Age 8, Of Williamsport, Pa., for his question;
What material is the covering of a hornets' nest?
Hornets and paper wasps build their apartment houses in branches and under the ,jutting edges of barns and hoube roofs. The nest of a tribe of paper wasps looks like a chunky umbrella, hanging upside dacrn by a stalk. Their cousins, the hornets, build round nests, sometimes shaped like footballs.
The busy workers find their nest building material in old tree stumps, fa11en logs and other supplies of wood. They chew the wood to pulp and patiently paste the 900ey gobs together to make walls to covet their nests. The paper we use is made from wood pulp. And when the walls of a hornets' nest dry, they are made of paper layers and layers of brownish paper.