Tim Reitmaier, age 12, of El Paso, Texas, for his question:
WHY DOES A WASP ATTACK PEOPLE?
A wasp can give a person a very painful sting. But the insect does not normally go after people. Wasps are nervous rather than mean. They sting only when they are bothered or frightened.
Only female and worker wasps have the sting, which is a thin, pointed drill hidden in the rear tip of the abdomen.
Wasps are among the most intelligent insects on earth. They are related to the bees and to the ants. Some live in colonies, like ants and honeybees. Other kinds do not live in communities, but build separate nests.
Wasps that live in colonies are called social wasps. Social wasps include yellow jackets and hornets.
Social wasps are the papermakers of the insect world. They build their nests of wasp paper, which is a mixture of old wood and tough plant fibers. Wasps chew this material to a pulp, using much saliva. Then they form it into feltlike masses. It is then real paper, made of cellulose, just like the paper on which you are reading these words.
A complete wasp nest is made of rows of cells, like those of a bee honeycomb. One group of social wasps, the Polistes, build a nest of a single comb, without any protecting cover. But the hornets and their relatives, called vespa, build round or pear shaped nests with many stories of combs. The outside covering is made of many layers of paper and will shed water.
Unlike a bee colony in a hive, a wasp colony lasts only through one summer.
Solitary wasps do not live together in colonies. They are both potters and stoneworkers. Some make nests out of mud and saliva and plaster these nests on the undersides of porch roofs or other protected places. Others mix pebbles with the mortar and build their nests on surfaces of rocks in open places.
There are no separate workers among the solitary wasps, as there are with the social wasps. The female builds the nest and gathers the food. She uses her strong mandibles or jaws to bore, dig and carry material back and forth. When the nest is finished, the wasp fifes out to catch insects.
After the wasp stings and paralyzes her victim, she drags it into the nest. Then she goes out for more. When she has collected a large enough supply, she lays an egg on each one of the bodies and seals up the nest.
The wasp larva hatches in a few days and finds an ample supply of fresh food. The larva feeds on the insect until grown and then spins its silken cocoon. When the wasp is in the cocoon it is called a pupa. It may remain a pupa only two or three weeks, but often it stays that way through the winter.
At the end of the pupas stage the full grown wasp gnaws its way out of the nest.